<prompt> Human: I live in California, a community property state. My husband owns a home that is only in his name although we were already married when he bought it. If he were to die would I be forced to leave the house while inheritance was established. Also, would I be subject to any taxes on the inheritance. The house is worth about 400k. We have lived here together for about 20 years; we both worked and I paid certain bills such as car insurance and groceries during that time. He does not have life insurance and there is not much to inherit besides the house, so if there were taxes I wouldnt be able to afford them.  <response>: With property like that, it is important to meet with a lawyer to square away anything prior to anyone dying. An estate lawyer is who you would want to talk to, to answer your questions and make sure that after death, things go as smoothly as possible. A lawyer will tell you if you are screwed or not, and give you some alternatives, depending on what you both want to do moving forward.You really dont want to deal with problems while trying to organize a funeral. My husbands side of the family through his mother still have issues over estates not settled over a decade ago. Money and property does weird things to people who think they are owed an inheritance.I was not invited to a funeral of a great aunt because they assumed I was going to ask for the property. I would never do that. But apparently, all the cousins were already fighting over it. 