What’s Yours, Mine, and Ours? Rethinking Ownership

Title is the legal label on an asset. For example, if a house is titled in both your names as joint tenants or as community property, the law presumes that you own it equally. If it's in one person’s name alone, it might be presumed to be that person’s separate property. These presumptions matter, but they don’t always reflect how couples actually think about fairness.

Title can tell the court who legally owns something, but it doesn’t always capture who contributed what, or what the two of you intended. And in California, the law can be rigid in ways that don’t always match your logic. 

A lot of couples don’t talk about this. They assume that if things ever end, it’ll be obvious what’s fair. But when expectations aren’t aligned, and when contributions and values don’t match the legal paperwork, things can get confusing.

In California, putting both names on a house doesn’t mean you’re each owed half. Paying the down payment doesn’t automatically entitle you to more. Community property law has a very particular set of rules, and if you don’t write something different, those rules step in by default.

Instead of following default laws, you can decide:

·       If you buy a house together, do you want your shares to reflect what each person put in?

·       If one of you uses separate property to make that happen, do you want to be reimbursed later?

·       If the house goes up in value, do you want that growth split equally—or proportional to what you contributed?

When I sit down with people and ask them about how they want to own property together, I’m not asking them to mimic some idealized version of fairness. I’m asking these questions:

What makes sense to you both now?

What would feel right if things changed later?

There’s no right answer here. And staying silent can come at a cost.

What feels fair depends a lot on where each person is coming from. Someone who built a business from scratch and is used to thinking in terms of risk and upside might want clear terms around reimbursement or return on investment. Someone who’s inherited wealth may feel pressure to protect what their family built, or worry about being resented for resources they didn’t earn. And some couples just want everything to feel simple and equal, even if their contributions aren’t.

You don’t have to share the same background to get aligned. But you do need to be curious about what fairness looks like to each of you. That might mean tracking dollar-for-dollar, or it might mean focusing on ease and mutual trust. The only real mistake is assuming you're already on the same page without ever checking. I’ve seen people avoid this conversation because they love each other and it feels uncomfortable to talk percentages.  

Here are some ways to talk about it:

·       “If we sold this place in ten years, what would feel fair to you?”

·       “Would this feel different to you if our incomes were flipped?” 

·       “What happens if we use one person’s separate funds to get something we both benefit from?”

·       “If we’re bringing in outside money—like a gift or inheritance—how should that be treated?”

·       “If I’m taking on most of the financial risk, what feels fair to you if things go well—or if they don’t?”

·       “Do you think ownership should reflect effort, money, or something else?”

·       “If one of us pays more now and the other contributes more later, how do we want to handle that?”

Owning a home can be emotional. A prenup gives you a place to write down the rules you want to live by, not because you don’t trust each other, but because you want to be clear with each other.