Oregon Community Property Article

Dorothy Kliks Fones Professor of Law Leslie Joan Harris of the University of Oregon has recently published an article entitled Tracing, Spousal Gifts, and Rebuttable Presumptions: Puzzles of Oregon Property Distribution Law, 83 Or. L. Rev. 1291 (2004).

The LexisNexis summary of this article states:

Besides having a practical impact on the lives of millions of people, marital property law, particularly divorce property law, also expresses some of the most fundamental assumptions about a culture’s understanding of marriage. * * * They may involve situations in which the owner of separate property has allowed it to become mixed with marital property (true commingling), where the owner has added the name of his or her spouse to the title (joint title), or where the owner has treated the property in a way that suggests he or she may have intended to give the separate property to the marital estate (implied-in-fact gift). .* * * Three of the earliest modern property division decisions from the Oregon Supreme Court involve claims that separate property had been converted into property subject to division at divorce by commingling. * * * The increase in the value of separate property during marriage is a marital asset, but a spouse can rebut the presumption of equal contribution by showing that the increase is substantially attributable to inflation, interest received, or other passive forces not involving productive effort by either spouse. * * * Kunze makes clear that changing the title of separate property alone does not preclude tracing.