Arizona Community Property Laws
An Arizona marriage has three property moments, and only one of them is a divorce. There is the agreement some couples sign before the wedding, governed by A.R.S. 25-201 to 25-205. There is the marriage itself. And there is the death, where Title 14 does things most people would not predict: a child from an earlier relationship can take the decedent’s entire half of the community, the surviving spouse’s own half stays inside the administration until claims close, and four different sworn affidavits move title without a personal representative. This page covers the agreement and the death. Division in a divorce is a separate subject with its own page, linked below. General legal information, not legal advice.
The Short Version
A.R.S. 14-2102 sets the intestate share, and it turns on one fact: whether every surviving descendant is also the surviving spouse’s. If so, the survivor takes the entire intestate estate. If even one is not, the survivor takes half of the intestate separate property and no interest in the decedent’s half of the community. A.R.S. 14-3101(A) then keeps the survivor’s own half in administration until the claims period expires, and afterwards to the extent needed to pay community claims.
Moving the property is a paperwork exercise with four routes and three thresholds, all in A.R.S. 14-3971 — wages on an affidavit, personal property after thirty days, vehicles and securities on the same affidavit, and real property only after six months, filed with the court and then recorded with the county recorder. A.R.S. 14-3972 tells a buyer or lender how far they may rely on the result. Meanwhile A.R.S. 14-2804 severs a survivorship estate automatically on divorce but leaves the severance invisible to a good-faith purchaser until it is put on record, and A.R.S. 25-201 to 25-205 govern the agreement that can displace much of it. Every one of those is a dated, findable instrument. Reading them is our part, once a permitted purpose is established.
Watch: Arizona Community Property at Death
What the survivor takes, and the affidavits that move it.
Watch Overview
The Intestate Share, and the Paragraph That Reverses It
A.R.S. 14-2102.
A.R.S. 14-2102 is two paragraphs long and it governs both the separate property and the one-half of community property that belonged to the decedent. Paragraph 1: if there is no surviving issue, or if there are surviving issue all of whom are issue of the surviving spouse also, the entire intestate estate passes to the surviving spouse. That is the outcome most people assume is the only outcome.
Paragraph 2 is the one that is almost never quoted. If there are surviving issue one or more of whom are not issue of the surviving spouse, the surviving spouse takes one-half of the intestate separate property and no interest in the one-half of the community property that belonged to the decedent. Not a reduced share of it. None of it.
So a single fact — a child from an earlier relationship — moves the decedent’s entire community half away from the surviving spouse, while the separate property is merely halved. Compare the neighbours: Idaho Code 15-2-102(b) sends the decedent’s community half to the surviving spouse with no such condition, and NMSA 1978, 45-2-102(B) does the same in New Mexico while giving the survivor only one-quarter of the separate estate where there is surviving issue. Three community property states, three different answers, and Arizona’s is the one that can leave a surviving spouse with nothing from the community.
A word on scope
Arizona has two pages here and they answer different questions. This one is about the agreement a couple may sign before marrying and about what happens at a death. The divorce question — what A.R.S. 25-318 tells the court to assign and to divide, the written creditor notice the court must serve under 25-318(H), the credit report a court may order released, and the liability ladder in A.R.S. 25-215 — is answered on our page for Arizona marital property laws. The two pages work different titles of the code and share no provision.
The Survivor’s Own Half Does Not Simply Vest
A.R.S. 14-3101.
A.R.S. 14-3101(A) opens conventionally. The power of a person to leave property by will, and the rights of creditors, devisees and heirs, are subject to the restrictions in Title 14, and on death a person’s separate property and share of community property devolves to the devisees under the will, or to substitutes where a lapse or renunciation applies, or in the absence of testamentary disposition to the heirs. The devolution of separate property and of the decedent’s share of community property is subject to the allowance in lieu of homestead, exempt property and family allowance, to the rights of creditors, and to administration.
Then comes the sentence that changes the picture: in addition, the surviving spouse’s share of the community property is subject to administration until the time for presentation of claims has expired, and thereafter only to the extent necessary to pay community claims. The survivor’s half is not the decedent’s, but it is not released either. It sits inside the estate for the whole claims period, available to community creditors.
That is a genuinely different posture from the state next door. Nevada’s NRS 123.250 makes the survivor’s undivided one-half their sole separate property and calls the decedent’s half "the only portion subject to administration". New Mexico agrees with Arizona at NMSA 1978, 45-3-101(C). Washington goes further still, subjecting the whole of the community property to administration under RCW 11.02.070. Whether a particular claim is a community claim is a legal question for an Arizona probate attorney; what a documented file establishes is what the community actually consisted of and what was owed against it.
Two estates at once
A.R.S. 14-3101(B) handles the case where both spouses die and the administration of one estate is not complete before the other begins. The estates may be combined in a single administration with the same personal representative where feasible, and a single application or petition may be made. Where the estates devolve as if each spouse survived the other because A.R.S. 14-2702 applies, and the estates are not combined, half of the community property is subject to administration in each estate and community claims are charged ratably to each half. Establishing what the community held, and in which county each parcel and entity sits, is the necessary groundwork for that arithmetic. Where the estate is on the receiving end of a claim, what Title 33 protects is set out on our page for Arizona asset exemptions from creditors.
Four Affidavits, Three Thresholds
A.R.S. 14-3971, route by route.
| What is being moved | When, and up to what | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Wages, salary or other compensation owed to the decedent | At any time after the death, up to five thousand dollars, to the surviving spouse. | The employer, on affidavit |
| Tangible personal property, or an instrument evidencing a debt, obligation, stock or chose in action | Thirty days after the death, where all personal property in the estate wherever located, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed two hundred thousand dollars. Thirty days | The holder, on affidavit |
| Registered securities | On the same affidavit; the transfer agent changes the registered ownership on the corporation’s books. | The transfer agent |
| A motor vehicle | On the same affidavit, with the necessary fees. | The motor vehicle division |
| Real property, or a debt secured by a lien on real property | Not sooner than six months after the death, where Arizona real property in the estate less liens and encumbrances does not exceed three hundred thousand dollars. | Filed in court, then recorded |
| The effect of any of them on a buyer | The payor is discharged as if dealing with a personal representative; a purchaser or lender relying on a recorded certified copy gets A.R.S. 14-3910 protection. | A.R.S. 14-3972 |
The real-property route is the one with a paper trail in two offices. A.R.S. 14-3971(E) requires the affidavit to be filed in the court of the county of domicile or where the land lies, and 14-3971(F) requires the registrar’s certified copy to be recorded with the county recorder. So a completed Arizona small-estate real-property transfer leaves a court filing and a recorded instrument, both dated, both findable.
What the Affidavit Says, and What It Protects
A.R.S. 14-3971 and 14-3972.
The personal-property affidavit under A.R.S. 14-3971(B) is not a form letter. It has to state that thirty days have elapsed since the death; that either no application or petition for appointment of a personal representative is pending and none has been appointed in any jurisdiction and the estate’s personal property wherever located, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed two hundred thousand dollars, or that the personal representative has been discharged or more than a year has passed since a closing statement was filed and the same threshold is met; that the claiming successor is entitled to payment or delivery; and that funeral expenses and expenses of the last illness have been paid.
The real-property affidavit under subsection E is longer and harder. It may not be filed sooner than six months after the death, and it must be filed in the court in the county where the decedent was domiciled at death — or, where the decedent was not domiciled in Arizona, in any county where the decedent’s real property is located. It must describe the property and the decedent’s interest, attach a certified copy of the death certificate, and state on pain of perjury that the value threshold is met (determined from the assessment rolls for the year of death, or from the unpaid principal balance where the interest is a debt secured by a lien), that funeral expenses, expenses of the last illness and all unsecured debts have been paid, that the affiant is entitled to the property by allowance in lieu of homestead, exempt property, family allowance, intestate succession as sole heir, or devise under a valid will attached or probated, that no other person has a right to the interest, and that no federal estate tax is due.
The discharge, and its limit
A.R.S. 14-3972(A) protects the person on the other side. Anyone paying, delivering, transferring or issuing personal property under an affidavit is discharged and released to the same extent as if they had dealt with a personal representative, is not required to see to the application of the property, and is not required to inquire into the truth of any statement in the affidavit. Where a holder refuses, the successor may compel delivery in a proceeding brought for the purpose.
But the protection stops at the payor. The same subsection provides that any person to whom payment, delivery, transfer or issuance is made is answerable and accountable to any personal representative of the estate, or to any other person having a superior right. Subsection B gives the motor vehicle division the same discharge. Subsection C extends it to real property in the form that matters most to a title examiner: a purchaser from, or lender to, the person designated as successor in a certified copy of a 14-3971 affidavit recorded in the county where the real property is located is entitled to the same protection as a person dealing with a distributee who received a deed of distribution from a personal representative, under A.R.S. 14-3910.
Two consequences follow for anybody assembling a picture. An affidavit is a sworn statement that unsecured debts were paid — which is a checkable assertion, not a formality. And the recorded certified copy is the document that gives a downstream buyer their protection, so its presence or absence in a county recorder’s index is decisive rather than administrative.
Severed by the Divorce, Invisible Until Recorded
A.R.S. 14-2804.
A.R.S. 14-2804(A) sets out what a divorce or annulment does to the paperwork of a marriage, except as the express terms of a governing instrument, a court order, or a contract relating to the division of the marital estate provide otherwise. Paragraph 1 revokes revocable dispositions and appointments of property made to a former spouse or to a relative of the former spouse, revocable provisions conferring a general or nongeneral power of appointment on them, and revocable nominations of them to serve in any fiduciary or representative capacity — personal representative, executor, trustee, conservator, agent or guardian.
Paragraph 2 is the one that reaches real property. A divorce or annulment severs the interests of the former spouses in property held by them at the time as joint tenants with right of survivorship or as community property with right of survivorship, and transforms those interests into tenancies in common. It happens by operation of law. Nobody has to sign anything, record anything or notice anything.
And then subsection B
Which is exactly the problem, and A.R.S. 14-2804(B) addresses it. A severance under paragraph 2 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 on as evidence of ownership in the ordinary course of transactions involving that kind of property.
So Arizona produces a real gap: between two former spouses the survivorship estate is gone from the moment of the decree, and to the outside world it persists until somebody puts a writing on record. A decree in a court file and a county recorder’s index that still shows community property with right of survivorship are not inconsistent documents; they are the statute working as written. Reconciling them — finding the decree, dating it, and establishing whether any severance writing was ever recorded against the parcel — is a two-office records exercise, and it is the kind of discrepancy that surfaces the same way anything else does in our guide to finding hidden assets in a divorce.
The Agreement Signed Before the Wedding
A.R.S. 25-201 to 25-205.
A.R.S. 25-202 sets the form and the escape routes. A premarital agreement must be in writing and signed by both parties; it is enforceable without consideration; and it becomes effective on marriage. It is unenforceable if the person resisting it proves either that they did not execute it voluntarily, or that it was unconscionable when executed and, before execution, they were not provided a fair and reasonable disclosure of the other party’s property or financial obligations, did not voluntarily and expressly waive that disclosure in writing, and did not have and could not reasonably have had adequate knowledge of it. All three limbs of the second route have to be satisfied, which is why the disclosure schedule attached to an agreement matters as much as the agreement.
A.R.S. 25-203 lists what may be agreed: rights and obligations in any property of either or both, whenever and wherever acquired or located; the right to deal with property in every listed way; the disposition of property on separation, dissolution, death, or any other event; modification or elimination of spousal support; the making of a will, trust or other arrangement to carry out the agreement; ownership and disposition of a life-insurance death benefit; choice of law; and any other matter not violating public policy or a criminal statute. A child’s right to support may not be adversely affected.
Two provisions that matter years later
A.R.S. 25-204 provides that after marriage a premarital agreement may be amended or revoked only by a written agreement signed by the parties, and that the amendment or revocation is enforceable without consideration. So there is no informal abandonment of an Arizona premarital agreement; if it changed, a signed writing exists.
A.R.S. 25-205 tolls the clock. Any statute of limitations applicable to an action asserting a claim for relief under a premarital agreement is tolled during the marriage of the parties, though equitable defences limiting the time for enforcement, including laches and estoppel, remain available to either party. A decades-old agreement is therefore not stale by the passage of time alone. Nevada takes the identical approach at NRS 123A.100. A.R.S. 25-202(D) adds one public backstop: where a provision modifying or eliminating spousal support would make one party eligible for public assistance at separation or dissolution, a court may require the other party to provide support to the extent necessary to avoid that eligibility, notwithstanding the terms of the agreement.
Where an Arizona Estate Stops Matching the Record
Six recurring gaps, none of which requires an accusation.
A Child From an Earlier Relationship
A.R.S. 14-2102(2) removes the surviving spouse’s interest in the decedent’s community half entirely, and it turns on descendants nobody listed.
A Survivorship Estate Severed by a Decree
A.R.S. 14-2804(A)(2) severs automatically on divorce, and 14-2804(B) leaves it invisible to a buyer until a writing is recorded.
An Affidavit Sworn Too Early
A.R.S. 14-3971(E) bars a real-property affidavit before six months, and (B) bars a personal-property one before thirty days.
Unsecured Debts Sworn to Be Paid
The 14-3971(E) affidavit asserts under penalty of perjury that all unsecured debts have been paid — a checkable claim.
A Certified Copy Never Recorded
Without recording under 14-3971(F), a later purchaser does not get the 14-3972(C) protection.
A Premarital Agreement Still Alive
A.R.S. 25-204 permits revocation only by signed writing, and 25-205 tolls limitation periods for the whole marriage.
None of these requires bad faith and we allege none. Every one is a document that reached a court, a county recorder or neither — and establishing which, with dates, is the work.
How an Arizona File Is Assembled
Purpose, then the dates, then two offices, then counsel.
A Permitted Purpose, Recorded Before Anything Else
A file opens only once a purpose permitted under FCRA, GLBA and DPPA has been stated and written down. Probate work is not a licence to find people, and a request that would put someone in danger is turned away here rather than quietly worked. Arizona’s Secretary of State runs an address confidentiality programme under A.R.S. 41-161 for relocated victims of domestic violence, a sexual offense or stalking, and we will not be the route around it.
Fix the Death Date and the Decree Date
A.R.S. 14-3971 measures thirty days and six months from a death, A.R.S. 14-3101 measures the claims period, and A.R.S. 14-2804 severs from a decree. All four are date arithmetic, so the dates come from filed documents before anything is characterised.
Read the Court File and the Recorder Together
Superior court probate and dissolution files; county recorder indexes for deeds, deeds of trust, releases, liens and any recorded certified affidavit or severance writing; Corporation Commission entity and agent filings; titled vehicles and vessels; address history.
Deliver It With Both References
Court case number and filing date where it is a filing, county and recording number where it is a recording, plus a candid confidence note — in a shape an Arizona probate attorney can put into an inventory, a claim or a quiet-title action.
Who This Research Is For
Filings from us; the legal call from counsel.
Arizona Probate Counsel
The community half, identified
Personal Representatives
A dated inventory across counties
Surviving Spouses
Whether 14-2102(2) applies at all
Title and Escrow Officers
Severance writings and recorded affidavits
Community Creditors
The claims window, measured
Estate Planning Counsel
Premarital agreements located
The role changes; the constraint does not. A.R.S. 14-2102 turns on who the descendants are, 14-3971 on a date and a threshold, and 14-2804 on whether a writing reached an index. We establish those facts and date them, and we stop there — no characterisation, no valuation, no opinion on Arizona law. Where a person has to be located before an estate can move, that is skip tracing, and the Arizona version is on our page for finding someone in Arizona.
What We Hand a Personal Representative, and What We Never Hand Anyone
After an Arizona death, title moves on sworn paper: an affidavit of succession filed under A.R.S. 14-3971(E) and recorded with the county recorder, a survivorship affidavit under A.R.S. 33-431(F) with a death certificate attached. Those documents are public, dated and findable, and reading them is what we do. An Arizona file returns recorded deeds and deeds of trust, releases and reconveyances, judgment and tax liens, Corporation Commission entity and agent filings, titled vehicles and vessels and address history — each with the county, the recording number, the date and a straight note on what stayed unconfirmed. We confirm a purpose the law permits before we begin. We never work by pretext: we do not claim to be someone else in order to be given a record, we impersonate nobody, and we do not reach inside accounts. This is a public-records research shop: no law practice here, and no investigator’s licence. An affidavit under A.R.S. 14-3971 is a sworn filing anyone may read; a consumer credit file is not, we assemble none, and we are not a consumer reporting agency. Nothing we deliver may settle a hire, a lease, a loan or a policy. Who inherits under A.R.S. 14-2102 is for your Arizona attorney and the probate court. Since 2004.
Arizona Community Property Questions
Answered from A.R.S. Titles 14 and 25 as read at source.
Does an Arizona surviving spouse always inherit the community property?
No, and the exception is sharper than most people expect. A.R.S. 14-2102 has two paragraphs. Under paragraph 1, where there is no surviving issue, or where every surviving descendant is also a descendant of the surviving spouse, the survivor takes the entire intestate estate — both the separate property and the decedent’s one-half of the community. Under paragraph 2, where there are surviving issue one or more of whom are not issue of the surviving spouse, the survivor takes one-half of the intestate separate property and no interest in the one-half of the community property that belonged to the decedent. A child from an earlier relationship therefore changes the community answer completely. General legal information, not legal advice.
Is the surviving spouse’s own half of the community safe from the estate?
Not immediately. A.R.S. 14-3101(A) provides that the devolution of separate property and of the decedent’s share of community property is subject to the allowance in lieu of homestead, exempt property, the family allowance, the rights of creditors and administration — and then adds that the surviving spouse’s share of the community property is subject to administration until the time for presentation of claims has expired, and thereafter only to the extent necessary to pay community claims. So a survivor who assumed their own half was untouched by the estate has assumed something the statute does not say. Nevada’s NRS 123.250 takes the opposite position, making the decedent’s half the only portion subject to administration.
What are the Arizona small-estate affidavits, and what are the limits?
A.R.S. 14-3971 sets out four routes. Subsection A lets an employer pay a surviving spouse wages, salary or other compensation owed to the decedent up to five thousand dollars on an affidavit. Subsection B, thirty days after the death, lets a holder of tangible personal property or of an instrument evidencing a debt, obligation, stock or chose in action deliver it to a claiming successor where the personal property in the estate, wherever located and less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed two hundred thousand dollars. Subsections C and D apply the same affidavit to securities transfer agents and to the motor vehicle division. Subsection E covers real property and is the slowest: not sooner than six months after the death, and only where the Arizona real property in the estate, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed three hundred thousand dollars.
How does the real-property affidavit actually move title?
By being filed and then recorded, in that order. A.R.S. 14-3971(E) requires the affidavit to be filed in the court in the county where the decedent was domiciled at death, or in any county where the decedent’s real property is located, and it must state that funeral expenses, expenses of the last illness and all unsecured debts have been paid, that the affiant is entitled to the property, that no other person has a right to the decedent’s interest, and that no federal estate tax is due. Subsection F then provides that on receipt, and after determining the affidavit is complete, the registrar issues a certified copy without attachments, and the copy shall be recorded in the office of the recorder in the county where the real property is located.
Can a buyer rely on one of those affidavits?
Yes, and A.R.S. 14-3972 says exactly how far. Under subsection A, a person who pays, delivers, transfers or issues personal property under an affidavit is discharged and released to the same extent as if they had dealt with a personal representative, and is not required to inquire into the truth of any statement in it. The recipient remains answerable to a personal representative or anyone with a superior right. Subsection C is the real-property version: a purchaser from, or a lender to, the person designated as successor in a certified copy of a 14-3971 affidavit recorded in the county where the real property is located is entitled to the same protection as someone dealing with a distributee holding a deed of distribution, under A.R.S. 14-3910.
What does an Arizona divorce do to community property with right of survivorship?
It severs it automatically. A.R.S. 14-2804(A)(2) provides that, except as the express terms of a governing instrument, a court order or a marital-estate contract provide otherwise, a divorce or annulment severs the interests of the former spouses in property held as joint tenants with right of survivorship or as community property with right of survivorship, and transforms those interests into tenancies in common. Subsection A(1) separately revokes revocable dispositions, powers of appointment and fiduciary nominations in favour of a former spouse and their relatives. No affidavit and no deed is required for the severance to happen.
Then why would anyone record anything?
Because of subsection B, which is the whole reason this matters to a title examiner. A severance under A.R.S. 14-2804(A)(2) 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 surviving former spouse — unless a writing declaring the severance has been noted, registered, filed or recorded in the records appropriate to the kind and location of the property that a person relied on as evidence of ownership in the ordinary course. The severance is automatic between the ex-spouses and invisible to the world until somebody puts it on record.
Can Arizona spouses agree their way out of all this before marrying?
Largely, yes. A.R.S. 25-202 requires a premarital agreement to be in writing and signed by both parties, makes it enforceable without consideration, and effective on marriage. It is unenforceable where the party resisting it proves that they did not execute it voluntarily, or that it was unconscionable when executed and they were not given fair and reasonable disclosure, did not expressly waive disclosure in writing, and did not and could not reasonably have had adequate knowledge of the other party’s property or obligations. A.R.S. 25-203 lists what may be agreed, including the disposition of property on death. A.R.S. 25-204 allows amendment or revocation after marriage only by a signed written agreement, enforceable without consideration. And A.R.S. 25-205 tolls any applicable statute of limitations during the marriage, leaving laches and estoppel available.
What do you refuse to do on an Arizona estate?
We refuse to draw the legal conclusions. Who takes what under A.R.S. 14-2102, whether a survivorship estate under A.R.S. 33-431(C) was validly created, and whether an affidavit under A.R.S. 14-3971 is appropriate at all are matters for an Arizona probate attorney and the court. We refuse to obtain any record by claiming to be someone we are not, and we do not access account contents. We are not a law firm and hold no investigator’s licence. Nothing we produce is anyone’s consumer report and we run no consumer reporting agency, so it cannot decide a hire, a lease, a loan or a policy. And we refuse any request that would help locate a person who relocated for safety, including a participant in the address confidentiality programme under A.R.S. 41-161.
Establish What the Community Actually Held
A.R.S. 14-2102 can hand a decedent’s entire community half to a child from an earlier relationship, A.R.S. 14-3101 keeps the survivor’s own half in administration until claims close, and A.R.S. 14-2804 severs a survivorship estate that a county recorder still shows. Each of those is settled by a court filing or a recorded instrument. Give us the purpose the law allows and the counties in play; what comes back is the Arizona filed and recorded record, every item stamped with the office it came from and the day it arrived there. A first read on a legitimate matter normally reaches you within 24 hours. Our contact page is where an Arizona file opens.
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