Fam. Code, § 2251 · Chapter 3. Procedural Provisions
Fam. Code, § 2251
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) If a determination is made that a marriage is void or voidable and the court finds that either party or both parties believed in good faith that the marriage was valid, the court shall:
(1) Declare the party or parties, who believed in good faith that the marriage was valid, to have the status of a putative spouse.
(2) If the division of property is in issue, divide, in accordance with Division 7 (commencing with Section 2500), that property acquired during the union that would have been community property or quasi-community property if the union had not been void or voidable, only upon request of a party who is declared a putative spouse under paragraph (1). This property is known as “quasi-marital property.”
(b) If the court expressly reserves jurisdiction, it may make the property division at a time after the judgment.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 2015, Ch. 196, Sec. 1. (AB 380) Effective January 1, 2016.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=FAM§ionNum=2251.
- Text hash
- sha256 38460ba5303eb9b19d0fc2dab7584eda57ace9712b27e7535266d7dbc18afd28
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- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
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Family Code
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