Rights of Creditors to Collect Marital Debts After Divorce in Community Property Jurisdictions

The primary thrust of this Article is to address the post-divorce liability issue outlined in Part III from the perspective of debtor-creditor law. The rules adopted in most of the community property jurisdictions with respect to this issue appear to be primarily focused on the perspective of marital property and family law without regard to general debtor-creditor law principles and policies. For example, basic fraudulent transfer law has been ignored in those jurisdictions and not applied in the usual manner. As a result, the rules developed in those jurisdictions with regard to the post-divorce liability issue are not consistent with the basic principles and policies of debtor-creditor law.

Part IV of this Article will discuss basic debtor-creditor law as it relates to this issue, and will propose a set of rules which could and should be adopted by the community property jurisdictions consistent with debtor-creditor law as it applies generally.