COMMUNITY PROPERTY
Community Property Law
In Practice Since 1994 | Louisiana State Bar Association Member
In Practice Since 1994Louisiana State Bar Association Member
Property Rights
Unless the parties, before or during the marriage, entered into a matrimonial agreement excluding or modifying the legal regime of community property, everything acquired by the spouses while residing in Louisiana is equally owned by them.
Property owned before marriage, individual gifts during the marriage, and property inherited are considered separate property and generally not subject to division when the community regime terminates (Louisiana Civil Code Article 2341).
Community property is that which is acquired during the marriage through the effort, skill or industry of either spouse, such as wages and employee benefit plans, property donated to the spouses jointly, and other property not classified as separate. If the parties cannot agree on what assets and liabilities are to be partitioned, or what values are to be assigned, the court will determine the values and then divide all the assets and liabilities, so each spouse receives one-half of the net value of the joint estate.
Separate Property
A spouse's separate property, by definition, belongs exclusively to the spouse. All property acquired prior to marriage is, of course, separate. After marriage, a spouse's separate property also includes:
- Property acquired after marriage if there is a prenuptial separate property agreement.
- Property acquired during the marriage after a postnuptial separate property agreement.
- Property acquired with the spouse's separate, or with the spouse's separate and community property when the value of the community property is inconsequential in comparison to the value of the separate property.
- Property donated to or inherited by one spouse.
- Damages from personal injury, worker's compensation, etc., awarded to one spouse only.
- Property acquired by a spouse from a voluntary partition of the community by spouses during the marriage.
- Damages awarded to a spouse in an action against the spouse for breach of contract, fraud or bad faith in the management of community property or the spouse's separate property.
- All property acquired by a spouse after divorce or death of his or her spouse, including property from a community property settlement or community property partition, is separate property.
Community Property
An individual owns an undivided one-half interest in the community property with a spouse - neither spouse can sell, mortgage, or lease his or her undivided interest in the community property until it is partitioned. Community property comprises the following:
- Property acquired during the marriage - unless spouses are separate in property - through the effort, skill or industry of either spouse.
- Property acquired with community property or with the community and separate property when the value of the separate property is inconsequential to the value of the community property.
- Property donated to the spouses jointly.
- Fruits and revenues of community property and fruits and revenues from the separate property unless specifically reserved as separate property.
- Damages or loss or injury to a community property asset.
- All property acquired during the marriage not classified as separate property.
- All property in the possession of a spouse during the marriage is presumed to be community property although either spouse may prove it to be separate property.
Marriage Contracts
Marriage contracts allow for the renunciation or modification of the community property rules as follows - a marriage contract can maintain the spouses completely separate in property, or provide for separate and community property during the marriage.
Learn more about marriage contracts with the knowledgeable attorney at Dawn Mims Law Offices.
Community vs Separate Property
How to change community property into separate property, and vice-versa:
- Donation by a spouse to the other spouse of his or her interest in a community asset converts the entire ownership of the asset to the separate property of the recipient spouse.
- Donation by a spouse of his or her separate property to the community transfers that property into community property.
- Voluntary partition of community property during marriage converts the property partitioned from community property to separate property of the recipient spouse.
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