If you are married or in a common-law relationship of more than two years, your spouse is automatically your beneficiary.
You can name multiple beneficiaries for several types of accounts. Most have a default provision that says who the beneficiary will be if you don't name one. Often times the default is your estate. However, this may not reflect your wishes and could have tax consequences.
Upon the death of a spouse, the surviving spouse is entitled to retain their half of the community property. The deceased spouse's half is typically distributed according to their will or, if there is no will, according to California's intestate succession laws.
A default beneficiary in a trust, or a taker-in-default, is a beneficiary who receives a distribution of income or capital because of the trustee's failure to make distributions.
So the answer is no, unless the beneficiary is changed, that is who will receive the money upon the account owner's death, regardless of a divorce.
That order of precedence follows: To your widow or widower. If your widow(er) is deceased, to your child or children, with the share of any deceased child distributed among the descendants of that child. If none of the above, to your parents in equal shares or the entire amount to the surviving parent.
In many cases, the spouse can inherit your house even if their name was not on the deed. This is because of how the probate process works. When someone dies intestate, their surviving spouse is the first one who gets a chance to file a petition with the court that would initiate administration of the estate.
If you are married, by law, your spouse must be named as the beneficiary. If you enter someone else, marital laws will take precedent and your spouse will receive the asset anyway. The only way around this is to get your spouse to sign a waiver.
Inheritance rights depend on state law and if the decedent had a will or trust. Marital property generally transfers automatically to the surviving spouse. Separate property is divided according to the deceased person's will or intestate laws if there is no will.
If you continue to miss payments, you risk turning your delinquency into a default. In this case, the lender may try to collect the missed payments or sell the debt to a collection agency.
If you do not name a beneficiary, The Standard will pay the life benefit according to the “policy order.” This means your surviving spouse will be paid the benefit as the first person listed in the order.
Remember, immigration law requires you and your spouse to answer each question correctly. Keep in mind that if you are the petitioner for a green card throughout the application, the form will refer to you as the “spouse beneficiary.”
While a spouse doesn't override a designated beneficiary on a bank account, they may be entitled to a portion of the assets in a payable-on-death bank account if those assets are community property.
While some marital assets pass by default to the surviving spouse, some assets pass to the surviving spouse by way of beneficiary designations. There are two types of designations: payable-on-death (POD) designations and transfer-on-death (TOD) designations.
A life insurance beneficiary designation usually overrides a current spouse or a will. Spouses in community property states must split the death benefit with the named beneficiary. Review (and update) your beneficiaries any time your situation changes.
If the beneficiary name is incorrect, your transfer will not go through and the money will be returned to the original bank from where it was transferred.
For a community property in California, it depends upon when and how their spouse acquired the property. The law asserts that all property purchased during the marriage, with income that was earned during the marriage, is community property.
California intestacy laws outline a specific order in which the deceased's family members are entitled to inherit property and what portion of the assets each should receive. If your deceased spouse died with no surviving children, parents, siblings, nieces, or nephews, you are entitled to inherit everything.
When creating, updating, or simply reviewing your estate plan, pay attention to your beneficiary designations. Remember, beneficiary designations take precedence over what you may have specified in a will or trust.
Here are the candidates who are most likely to inherit from the estate, in order of priority: the surviving spouse, direct descendants (child, grandchild, and so on), parents, siblings, nephews and nieces, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.