Opinion ID: 1360707
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Unimproved Parcel

Text: When husband conveyed the unimproved parcel to himself and wife as joint tenants in 1976, the only statutory provision for treating joint tenancy property as community property for purposes of division upon marital dissolution was section 5110, which applied only to a single family residence. No such presumption was applicable at that time to unimproved land. The presumption of section 4800.1, however, enacted seven years later in 1983, applies to all joint tenancy property, including unimproved land. (See ante, fn. 6.) In Buol, supra, 39 Cal.3d 751, we held that the provision of section 4800.1 requiring a writing to rebut the presumption that property acquired in joint tenancy is community property could not constitutionally be applied to deprive Mrs. Buol of her vested property interest without due process of law. Here, however, Buol does not preclude retroactive application of section 4800.1's presumption that the unimproved parcel conveyed by husband to himself and wife in joint tenancy is community property, because husband held no vested property right, as a joint tenant of the parcel, that he would not also have held as owner of a community property interest while both spouses were still alive. (See In re Marriage of Hilke, supra, 4 Cal.4th at p. 222 [joint tenant's survivorship interest, contingent upon surviving other joint tenant, not a vested right].) We conclude that, in accordance with section 4800.1, the trial court properly treated the unimproved lot as community property.