Although there are many issues of transferring property be deed during a marriage, a recent case, IRMO Yeh v. Tai (12-21-17) dealt with the issue of a deceased ex-husband removing the wife from title and then subsequently transferred it to a trust. In this case, husband had bought a condominium with community funds that were acquired during the marriage. He convinced his wife to sign an inter-spousal transfer deed and allegedly promised to add his wife’s name back onto title at a later time. As with most cases on this subject matter, the husband did not add his wife back to title. Instead, he transferred the condo into a trust in which his children from a previous marriage were the beneficiaries. The appellate Court found that Family code 1100 controlled and that such a transfer could be considered a breach of their fiduciary duty and that the husband could not divest his wife’s interest in the property by such a transfer.
