15-6-404. TERMINATION OF COMMUNITY PROPERTY WITH RIGHT OF SURVIVORSHIP IN PERSONAL PROPERTY. (1) The right of survivorship is extinguished by a document executed by either spouse that sets forth:

(a) A stated intent by the spouse to terminate the survivorship right;

(b) A description of the instrument by which the right of survivorship was created, including the date the instrument was executed; and

(c) A description of the personal property affected by the document.

The execution of the document shall not extinguish the community interest of either spouse.

(2) The right of survivorship is extinguished upon delivery, while both husband and wife are alive, of the document described in subsection (1) of this section to the entity at which the personal property is held.

(3) Divorce or annulment of the marriage of the husband and wife, unless otherwise ordered by the court in which the divorce is granted, severs the interests of the former spouses in property held by them at the time of the divorce or annulment as community property with the right of survivorship and transforms the interests of the former spouses into tenancies in common. A severance under this section does not affect any third party interest in property acquired for value and in good faith reliance on an apparent title by survivorship in the survivor of the former spouses unless a writing declaring the severance has been noted, registered, filed or recorded in records appropriate to the kind and location of the property that a person relied upon as evidence of ownership in the ordinary course of transactions involving that property.

(4) If both spouses are deceased and it cannot be reasonably ascertained which spouse was the first to die and which spouse survived, the right of survivorship shall be deemed terminated and the property treated as community property without the right of survivorship.

History:

[15-6-404, added 2015, ch. 247, sec. 2, p. 1044.]