Colorado law, for title research

Is Colorado a community property state? No: marital property, joint tenancy words and entirety deeds

Every rule below is quoted from the Colorado Revised Statutes 2024 or another official source, linked and checked on the date shown. General information, not legal advice.

How does Colorado divide property in a divorce?

Under section 14-10-113, the court sets apart to each spouse his or her property and divides the marital property, without regard to marital misconduct, in such proportions as it deems just after considering all relevant factors. Those include each spouse's contribution, including as homemaker, the value of property set apart to each, and each spouse's economic circumstances. Property is valued as of the decree, or an earlier hearing on the property.

Marital property means all property acquired by either spouse after the marriage, except gifts, bequests, devises and descent, exchanges for premarital or inherited property, property acquired after a legal separation decree, and property excluded by valid agreement. That definition is for purposes of that article only. Section 14-2-201 separately describes the property a person owns at marriage, or takes by descent, devise, bequest or gift, in its own terms.

A divorce case can also limit transfers while it is pending. Section 14-10-107(4)(b)(I)(A) applies a temporary injunction restraining both parties from transferring, encumbering, concealing or disposing of marital property without the other's consent or a court order, except in the usual course of business or for the necessities of life. We found no section in Title 14 requiring a decree to be recorded, and the words lis pendens do not appear in that title.

Does the name on a Colorado deed decide whose property it is in a divorce?

Not by itself. All property acquired by either spouse after the marriage and before a legal separation decree is presumed marital regardless of whether title is held individually or as joint tenants, tenants in common, tenants by the entirety or community property. Section 14-10-113(3) says that presumption is overcome by a showing that the property was acquired by a method listed in subsection (2). A premarital or inherited asset counts as marital to the extent its value has grown, and a gift from one spouse to the other is presumed marital, rebuttable by clear and convincing evidence, other than nonbusiness tangible personal property.

What does a deed to a Colorado couple create?

It depends on the words. Apart from conveyances to fiduciaries and the entirety section, Section 38-31-101 says no conveyance or devise to two or more natural persons creates a joint tenancy unless the instrument or will declares it. JTWROS and as joint tenants with right of survivorship carry the same meaning. Absent those exceptions, a deed to natural persons without those words creates a tenancy in common.

Tenancy by the entirety cannot be created in Colorado, whether the conveyance was executed before or after July 1, 2006. Section 38-31-201 presumes a deed executed before that date that purports to create one to be a joint tenancy, and one executed on or after that date creates a joint tenancy.

Except as provided in sections 38-35-118 and 38-41-202(4), the homestead sections described below, one joint tenant may sever alone by recording an instrument conveying that interest to himself or herself as a tenant in common. On a joint tenant's death that interest ends, and a sole survivor holds free of it, if the tenancy was still in place.

Recording is not the only way a joint tenancy ends. Section 15-11-804(2)(b) says divorce or annulment severs former spouses' joint tenancy with right of survivorship and turns it into tenancies in common, subject to that section's exceptions for the express terms of a governing instrument, a court order or a contract. Subsection (3) protects a third party who acquired for value in good faith reliance on apparent title by survivorship, unless a writing declaring the severance was recorded. Section 38-31-101(7) adds that it does not abrogate case law establishing other means of severing, so the record alone may not answer the question.

Does a Colorado spouse have to sign a deed?

It depends on the homestead record. Section 14-2-207 says a married person may convey his or her property as if unmarried, and Section 14-2-206 says the separate deed of a spouse conveys no interest in the other spouse's lands. For property homesteaded automatically, Section 38-41-202(3) lets the owner convey or encumber it free of homestead rights, and no signature other than the owner's is required.

A recorded instrument changes that. If the owner or the owner's spouse records an instrument describing the property, naming the owner and the source of the interest, and stating that the property is being homesteaded, Section 38-41-202(4) requires the signature of both spouses to convey or encumber it. Under Section 38-35-118(1), a recital in a recorded conveyance of the party's marital status, or that the property is or is not occupied as a home, is prima facie evidence of the facts stated.

What about community property from another state?

Colorado's Uniform Community Property Disposition at Death Act, reenacted by Senate Bill 23-100 effective July 1, 2023, covers a decedent domiciled in Colorado. For that decedent it applies, however title is held, to all or a proportionate part of each item of personal property that was community property under the law of the decedent's or surviving spouse's domicile when acquired or when it later became community property, income and other increase from it, personal property traceable to it, and property held in a community property trust. That 2023 list named personal property, apart from the trust provision. House Bill 26-1189 added real property: regardless of whether the decedent was domiciled in Colorado, the act now also applies to real property located in Colorado that is traceable to community property or was acquired with it, and to income, rent and other increase from that land. The bill set August 12, 2026 as its effective date. One-half belongs to the surviving spouse, and the other half is subject to disposition by the decedent at death.

There is an important limit. Except for calculating the augmented estate and elective share, Section 15-20-106(4) says that section does not apply to property transferred by right of survivorship or under a revocable trust or other nonprobate transfer.

The act presumes that property acquired while domiciled where community property could then be acquired by operation of law is community, rebuttable by a preponderance of the evidence. A surviving spouse asserting a right in property must sue the person in possession within three years of the death, or send a demand to the personal representative within the time periods in section 15-12-803. The act does not apply to property spouses have partitioned or reclassified, to property under a waiver, or to property acquired by spouses domiciled in Colorado that falls outside the listed categories. Section 15-20-110 protects a person who transacts in good faith and for value, without knowing or having reason to know of an improper exercise of authority. Section 15-20-114 applies the act to proceedings commenced on or after July 1, 2023, regardless of the date of death, and Section 15-20-113 keeps older statutes for a limitation period that began running before that date.

What does a surviving Colorado spouse take?

Dower and courtesy are abolished by section 15-11-112. Without a will, the spouse takes the entire intestate estate when no descendant or parent survives, or all descendants are also the spouse's and the spouse has no other descendant; other family patterns get a set amount plus a share under section 15-11-102. A spouse of a decedent domiciled in Colorado may elect fifty percent of the marital-property portion of the augmented estate.

That portion is not the marital property of a divorce case. Section 15-11-203 builds it from the net probate estate, nonprobate transfers to others, nonprobate transfers to the spouse, and the spouse's own property and transfers, then multiplies the sum by a percentage set by the length of the marriage, from supplemental amount only under a year up to the full amount at ten years or more. Section 15-11-202(2) adds a supplemental amount where the listed amounts fall short of fifty thousand dollars, a figure the court adjusts for cost of living under section 15-10-112. The petition is due within nine months after death or six months after probate of the will, whichever is later, subject to extension by the court.

What a title search checks on a married Colorado owner

A title check before buying reads the vesting words on each deed, because joint tenancy depends on them. It looks for a recorded severance, a recorded homestead instrument, any marital status recital, and for a dissolution decree or probate record in the county records. Whether one of those changed who holds title is a question for a Colorado attorney.

The Colorado marital property rules on this page, with their sources

Sources: IRS Publication 555, Community Property; Colorado Revised Statutes 2024, section 14-10-113; Colorado Revised Statutes 2024, section 38-31-101; Colorado Revised Statutes 2024, section 38-31-201; Colorado Senate Bill 23-100, section 15-20-101; Colorado Senate Bill 23-100, section 15-20-103; Colorado Session Laws 2026, chapter 47; Colorado Senate Bill 23-100, section 15-20-106; Colorado Senate Bill 23-100, section 15-20-105; Colorado Senate Bill 23-100, section 15-20-108; Colorado Revised Statutes 2024, section 15-11-112; Colorado Revised Statutes 2024, section 15-11-202; Colorado Revised Statutes 2024, section 15-11-102; Colorado Revised Statutes 2024, Title 15; Colorado Revised Statutes 2024, Title 14. Each row links the section it summarizes.

Questions people ask

More on how Colorado property law shapes a title search: title research in Colorado.