California community-property glossary

Property and value

• Community estate: the community and quasi-community property and obligations before the court for division.
• Separate property: property characterized outside the community estate, including categories identified in Family Code section 770, subject to later transactions and proof.
• Gross fair market value: the supported current value before subtracting debt secured by the asset.
• Encumbrance: debt or lien attached to an asset, such as a mortgage against real property.
• Net equity: gross value less the encumbrances counted against the asset.
• Valuation date: the date as of which a balance or value is measured.

Claims and proof

• Characterization: the legal classification of property or debt, not merely the owner name printed on a statement.
• Tracing: documentary analysis following funds or property through transactions to establish their source and claimed character.
• Transmutation: a change in property character between spouses, subject to the statutory express-declaration requirements and exceptions.
• Reimbursement: a claim to restore a qualifying contribution or payment under a specific legal rule; it is not automatically an ownership percentage.
• Provenance: the document, page, row and method from which an entry or figure came.

Division and implementation

• Equalizing payment: a payment used to reconcile an allocation of whole assets and debts to the required or agreed division total.
• Face value: the value used on the property ledger before separate negotiation assumptions about future tax, cost or access.
• Effective value: an assumption-based negotiation view of what an asset may be worth after tax, transaction cost and timing; not a substitute for the legal ledger.
• QDRO: a qualified domestic relations order used for many private retirement-plan divisions; plan and benefit type determine the required mechanism.
• Indemnity: a contractual duty between parties to protect or reimburse one another; it does not by itself release either person from a creditor.

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