University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository
Abstract
The subject of marital property rights is very timely because those rights are in a state of transition. The term marital property rights covers a vast multitude of rights or interests conferred by law on persons who occupy the status of spouse. This lecture is divided into four discrete, yet related segments. The first segment addresses how the law allocates original ownership between spouses in a marriage. The second segment turns to the intestate share of the surviving spouse. This is not a topic that high-powered estate planners get involved in very much because intestate estates are usually fairly small. But to the surviving spouse, the intestate share can mark the difference between economic security and poverty. The third segment addresses the rights of spouses upon divorce and disinheritance at death. The fourth and final segment surveys some recent developments regarding the rights of persons who are not spouses at all, but near-spouses
