Nevada Community Property and a Spouse’s Creditors

A judgment against one spouse in Nevada is collected from property, and which property depends on when the debt arose. Neither the other spouse’s separate property nor that spouse’s share of the community answers for a debt contracted before the wedding. A debt one spouse takes on after the wedding reaches all of the community property, both spouses’ earnings included, as the Ninth Circuit has stated Nevada’s rule.

The other spouse’s separate property stays out of reach, apart from a narrow rule on necessaries. The Nevada Supreme Court has never stated that general rule itself, and Nevada has no tenancy by the entirety to fall back on. A written agreement can make property separate, and the fraudulent-transfer act reaches that agreement like any other transfer.

Does a Nevada Spouse Owe the Other Spouse’s Debts?

No, marrying in Nevada does not expose one spouse’s separate property to the other spouse’s debts, apart from one statutory rule on necessaries. Property a spouse owned before marrying stays that spouse’s own, and so does a later gift, inheritance or personal-injury award, together with the income any of it produces.

Nevada’s statute shields both the other spouse’s separate property and that spouse’s share of the community from a debt the debtor spouse contracted before marrying. The section has not been amended since 1975. In Greear v. Greear, 303 F.2d 893 (9th Cir. 1962), the Ninth Circuit read an earlier version, with a 1945 Nevada decision, as freeing the whole community from either spouse’s premarital debts.

The same decision carved out one exception, with no Nevada case on point. An alimony or child-support obligation left over from an earlier marriage keeps its claim on the paying spouse’s earnings after the remarriage, and the new community owns those earnings. The Nevada Supreme Court has never adopted or rejected that exception.

Nevada’s necessaries rule reaches a spouse’s separate property for the other spouse’s support. When a spouse neglects to support the other, anyone who in good faith supplies the neglected spouse with necessaries can recover their reasonable value from the neglecting spouse. That spouse’s separate property pays only if the community property is not enough.

A spouse who signed the loan or a guaranty owes that debt outright.

What a Judgment Against One Spouse Reaches in Nevada

A creditor holding a judgment against one Nevada spouse can reach that spouse’s separate property and, for a debt incurred during the marriage, the couple’s community property. Everything either spouse acquires after the wedding is community property, unless it is separate property or a written agreement between the spouses keeps it out of the community. Each spouse’s interest in it is present, existing and equal while the marriage lasts.

Either spouse may manage the community property alone, with the same power of disposition a spouse has over separate property. Community real property is one exception; both spouses must join in any deed or encumbrance. Neither spouse may give community property away without the other’s consent.

No Nevada statute states the general rule for a debt one spouse runs up while married, and the Nevada Supreme Court has not stated it either. The Ninth Circuit has.

In United States v. ITT Consumer Financial Corp., 816 F.2d 487, 491 n.12 (9th Cir. 1987), the court listed the seven community-property states that give both spouses equal management, Nevada among them, and stated the rule for such a debt. It “may be satisfied only from community property or the separate property of the incurring spouse.” The other spouse’s separate property is off limits unless that spouse took on the debt.

That statement is a footnote in a credit-discrimination case, and it cites Nevada’s statutes as they stood in 1985. The premarital-debt section it relies on has not changed since, and the necessaries section reads today as stated above. Nevada’s statutes state only the premarital shield, the necessaries rule, a support duty for a destitute and infirm spouse, and a rule for an abandoned spouse. They draw no line, as Texas does, between the community property each spouse manages, and they set no order, as California does, for collecting a tort judgment.

The Nevada Supreme Court has enforced a judgment against one spouse out of the couple’s property where the debt was a community obligation. In Carlson v. McCall, 70 Nev. 437, 271 P.2d 1002 (1954), a creditor holding a judgment against the husband, and only him, levied on the couple’s ranch and sold it at execution. The ranch had been bought during the marriage and stood in both names, and the wife claimed it as her separate property.

The court held that, as against a creditor, property acquired during the marriage is presumed to be community property, and that only clear, certain and convincing proof of a transmutation rebuts the presumption. Her proof fell short. Against a creditor, the name on the title does not settle the question; the date of acquisition does.

For a creditor whose judgment names one spouse, the rules sort out as follows:

Property	A debt from before the wedding	A debt either spouse takes on while married
The debtor spouse’s own separate property	Yes	Yes
Community property, both spouses’ earnings included	No, as the Ninth Circuit reads the statute; support owed from an earlier marriage excepted	Yes, as the Ninth Circuit states the rule; the Nevada Supreme Court has not said so
The other spouse’s separate property	No	No, unless that spouse signed or the necessaries rule applies

Four decisions, collected under Nevada asset protection case law, carry Nevada’s law on a spouse’s creditor. Greear covers premarital debts, ITT the debts of the marriage, Carlson the presumption, and Norwest wages and bankruptcy.

Are Both Spouses’ Wages Community Property in Nevada?

Yes, wages earned by either spouse while married are community funds in Nevada, whichever spouse earns more, so a creditor who can reach the community can reach the other spouse’s paycheck. The Nevada Supreme Court restated that rule in Norwest Financial v. Lawver, 109 Nev. 242, 849 P.2d 324 (1993).

The same decision says what makes a loan a community debt or one spouse’s separate debt. The test is what the lender intended when it made the loan. Loan proceeds taken during the marriage are presumed to be community, and the presumption gives way if the lender looked to the borrowing spouse’s separate property when it lent.

How a loan was applied for and secured therefore decides, years later, whether the couple’s community property answers for it. A loan made on the strength of one spouse’s separate property is that spouse’s separate debt.

Does One Spouse’s Bankruptcy Protect the Other Spouse’s Wages?

Yes, once one spouse receives a Chapter 7 discharge, a creditor with a community claim cannot later go after community property the couple acquires, the non-filing spouse’s wages included. The rule comes from federal bankruptcy law, 11 U.S.C. § 524(a)(3), and the Nevada Supreme Court applied it in Norwest Financial v. Lawver. 109 Nev. at 244-47, 849 P.2d at 325-27.

The opinion adds that in a community-property state “there is no need for both spouses to file unless the nondebtor spouse has substantial separate debt.” A separate debt of the non-filing spouse is outside the rule, and so is anything the couple owned when the case was filed. A community claim the discharge itself did not reach, such as a debt for fraud, stays collectible against that property.

Can a Nevada Couple Make Property Separate by Agreement?

Yes, Nevada spouses can make community property separate by a written agreement, and a creditor can attack that agreement as a fraudulent transfer. Nevada’s community-property statute itself gives way to a written agreement between the spouses. Spouses may contract with each other over property as if unmarried; the duties of confidence and trust between them still apply.

A marriage contract or settlement must be in writing, executed and acknowledged the way a deed is. Where it affects real property, it binds anyone but the spouses only once it is recorded with the recorder of the county where the land sits. A spouse may also sign, acknowledge and record a full inventory of separate property other than money in the county of residence.

Against a creditor, the agreement is a transfer, and Nevada’s fraudulent-transfer act reaches two kinds of transfer. One is made with what the act calls “actual intent to hinder, delay or defraud any creditor.” A second kind is made without reasonably equivalent value coming back, by a debtor who expected to run up debts he could not pay. Courts weigh eleven listed factors for intent. A transfer to one’s own spouse shows several of them when nothing comes back and the couple still controls the property.

Under Nevada’s fraudulent-transfer act, the creditor’s deadline is four years from the transfer, or a year from discovering an intentional one if that is later. Nothing in the act makes an agreement signed after a claim exists void on its own. The questions are the transferring spouse’s intent and whether the transfer left that spouse unable to pay. The cleanest position is an agreement signed before any claim exists.

Putting community property into a Nevada spendthrift trust does not change its character. The Nevada Supreme Court noted in Klabacka v. Nelson (Nev. 2017) that a spouse who is not a beneficiary keeps a property interest in community property held in such a trust. The statute’s restraints on reaching trust assets do not apply to that spouse’s community share. A Nevada trust funded with community property therefore leaves the non-beneficiary spouse’s share where it was.

What Nevada Community Property Law Leaves Exposed

Nevada community property law exposes the couple’s community property, both spouses’ earnings included, to a creditor whose debt either spouse incurred during the marriage. It shelters the other spouse’s separate property, and it keeps the community itself clear of a premarital debt. The during-marriage rule rests on a Ninth Circuit footnote the Nevada Supreme Court has never confirmed or rejected. Carlson is the closest that court has come, enforcing a community obligation against the couple’s ranch.

Nevada has no tenancy by the entirety, so joint title on an account adds nothing. The states that recognize the entireties estate give a married couple an ownership form Nevada does not. Florida’s rule runs the other way. Entireties property there is out of reach of a creditor whose judgment names only one of the spouses. A couple who moves from Nevada to Florida keeps community property as community property until they retitle it.

Nevada’s marital-property chapter lets a couple make property separate by written agreement, one best signed before any claim exists and open to a fraudulent-transfer claim for years afterward. What Nevada leaves exposed is liquid money, the cash and brokerage balances above what the state exempts. For those accounts, asset protection in Nevada means an offshore trust. A married Nevadan funds it with both spouses’ consent, or with property first made separate.