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Community property states have no elective share statutes. There is an exception for quasi-community property in Idaho and California. Each spouse has unrestricted disposition over separate property. In a community property state, the surviving spouse is put to an election if the deceased spouse leaves a will that purports to dispose of the entire interest in community property, and not just the one-half community property over which he has the power of testamentary disposition. If a spouse elects against a will that disposes of her share of community property the spouse relinquishes all testamentary gifts in her favor made in the will and may retain all of her community property. (If the spouse takes under the will, the decedent's will operates to transfer the surviving spouse's one-half community property, as well as his own.) Most community property states hold that a spouse can make reasonable gifts of community property so long as such gifts are not in fraud of the other spouse's community property rights. The minority allows the spouse who does not join in or consent to such a transfer to elect to set the transfer aside. When community assets are imported into a common law state, the ...
