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  1. #7
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
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    Default Re: At What Point Can I Change Locks

    Quote Quoting budwad
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    It's your house, she has moved out, and you are in the process of divorce. There is no reason that you can't change your locks so that she has to coordinate with you to pick up her property. Just make it reasonable.
    It is not that simple. They are not yet divorced. California Family Code (FC) section 753 states: “Notwithstanding Section 752 and except as provided in Article 2 (commencing with Section 2045), Article 3 (commencing with Section 2047), or Article 4 (commencing with Section 2049) of Chapter 4 of Part 1 of Division 6, neither spouse may be excluded from the other's dwelling.” (Bolding added.) Article 2 deals with the situation where a court has entered an ex parte order, in this situation one prohibiting access. (Ex parte, by the way, means something a little different in California than in a lot of other jurisdictions.) Articles 3 and 4 deal with situations in which a court has entered a protective order against one of the spouses. In short, the statute says that in California a person may not prevent his/her spouse from entering his dwelling unless there is some ex parte court order granting one spouse exclusive possession of the home or there is a protective court order against one of the spouses in favor of the other spouse. Note that this right of entry does not turn on whether the dwelling is community property.

    There is however a possible judicial exception:

    By voluntarily leaving the house, giving up his house keys on January 31, 2004, and heeding the directives of T.G. to stay out of the family home, defendant waived his unconditional right to enter the home. By obtaining the house keys voluntarily from defendant, T.G. exerted possessory control over the family home to the exclusion of others, specifically the defendant. (Smith, supra, 142 Cal.App.4th at p. 932, 48 Cal.Rptr.3d 378.) Defendant's subsequent conduct demonstrated that he gave up his right to possessory interest in the house and understood he did not have the right to enter the residence at will.

    People v. Gill, 159 Cal. App. 4th 149, 161, 70 Cal. Rptr. 3d 850, 867 (2008). Thus, if it can be clearly shown that wife has waived her unconditional right to enter the home the OP might be able to exert exclusive possession of the home and bar his wife from reentry. The problem is that this case is a criminal one, not a family law decision and it is not clear how this might play out under a different set of facts in a divorce contest. Thus, given the right of entry given by FC § 753, I agree with flyingron that the OP really ought to consult a family law attorney before changing the locks and denying his wife entry to his home.

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