Arizona Laws 14-2804. Termination of marriage; effect; revocation of probate and nonprobate transfers; federal law; definitions
A. Except as provided by the express terms of a governing instrument, a court order or a contract relating to the division of the marital estate made between a divorced couple before or after the marriage, divorce or annulment, the divorce or annulment of a marriage:
Terms Used In Arizona Laws 14-2804
- Action: includes any matter or proceeding in a court, civil or criminal. See Arizona Laws 1-215
- Agent: includes an attorney-in-fact under a durable or nondurable power of attorney, a person who is authorized to make decisions concerning another person's health care and a person who is authorized to make decisions for another person under a natural death act. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
- Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. Source: OCC
- Beneficiary: means an individual for whom property has been transferred to, or held under a declaration of trust by, a custodial trustee for the individual's use and benefit under this chapter. See Arizona Laws 14-9101
- community property with the right of survivorship: includes co-owners of property held under circumstances that entitle one or more to the whole of the property on the death of the other or others but excludes forms of co-ownership registration in which the underlying ownership of each party is in proportion to that party's contribution. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
- Conservator: means a person who is appointed by a court to manage the estate of a protected person. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
- Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
- Court: means the superior court. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
- Decedent: A deceased person.
- Estate: includes the property of the decedent, trust or other person whose affairs are subject to this title as originally constituted and as it exists from time to time during administration. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
- Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
- Executor: A male person named in a will to carry out the decedent
- Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
- Fiduciary: includes a personal representative, guardian, conservator and trustee. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
- Governing instrument: means a deed, will, trust, insurance or annuity policy, account with pay on death designation, security registered in beneficiary form, pension, profit sharing, retirement or similar benefit plan, instrument creating or exercising a power of appointment or power of attorney or supported decision-making agreement or a dispositive, appointive or nominative instrument of any similar type. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
- including: means not limited to and is not a term of exclusion. See Arizona Laws 1-215
- Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
- Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
- Payor: means a trustee, insurer, business entity, employer, government, governmental agency or subdivision or any other person who is authorized or obligated by law or a governing instrument to make payments. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
- Person: means an individual or an organization. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
- Personal representative: includes an executor, an administrator, a successor personal representative, a special administrator and persons who perform substantially the same function under the law governing their status. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
- Probate: Proving a will
- Property: includes both real and personal property. See Arizona Laws 1-215
- Right of survivorship: The ownership rights that result in the acquisition of title to property by reason of having survived other co-owners.
- Summons: Another word for subpoena used by the criminal justice system.
- Writing: includes printing. See Arizona Laws 1-215
1. Revokes any revocable:
(a) Disposition or appointment of property made by a divorced person to that person’s former spouse in a governing instrument and any disposition or appointment created by law or in a governing instrument to a relative of the divorced person’s former spouse.
(b) Provision in a governing instrument conferring a general or nongeneral power of appointment on the divorced person’s former spouse or on a relative of the divorced person’s spouse.
(c) Nomination in a governing instrument that nominates a divorced person’s former spouse or a relative of the divorced person’s former spouse to serve in any fiduciary or representative capacity, including a personal representative, executor, trustee, conservator, agent or guardian.
2. Severs the interests of the former spouses in property held by them at the time of the divorce or annulment as joint tenants with the right of survivorship or as community property with the right of survivorship and transforms the interests of the former spouses into tenancies in common.
B. A severance under subsection A, paragraph 2 of this section 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 property.
C. Provisions of a governing instrument are given effect as if the former spouse and relatives of the former spouse disclaimed all provisions revoked by this section or, in the case of a revoked nomination in a fiduciary or representative capacity, as if the former spouse and relatives of the former spouse died immediately before the divorce or annulment.
D. Provisions revoked solely by this section are revived by the divorced person’s remarriage to the former spouse or by a nullification of the divorce or annulment.
E. No change of circumstances other than as described in this section and in section 14-2803 effects a revocation.
F. Any payor or other third party is not liable for making a payment or transferring an item of property or any other benefit to a beneficiary designated in a governing instrument affected by a divorce, annulment or remarriage, or for taking any other action in good faith reliance on the validity of the governing instrument, before the payor or other third party receives written notice of the divorce, annulment or remarriage. Any payor or other third party is liable for a payment made or any other action taken after the payor or other third party receives written notice of a claimed forfeiture or revocation under this section.
G. Written notice of the divorce, annulment or remarriage under subsection F of this section must be mailed to the payor’s or other third party’s main office or home by certified mail, return receipt requested, or served on the payor or other third party in the same manner as a summons in a civil action. On receipt of written notice of the divorce, annulment or remarriage, a payor or any other third party may pay any amount owed or transfer or deposit any item of property held by it to or with the court having jurisdiction of the probate proceedings relating to the decedent‘s estate or, if no proceedings have been commenced, to or with the court having jurisdiction of probate proceedings relating to decedents’ estates located in the county of the decedent’s residence. The court shall hold the monies or item of property and, on its determination under this section, shall order disbursement or transfer in accordance with the determination. Payments, transfers or deposits made to or with the court discharge the payor or other third party from all claims for the value of amounts paid to or items of property transferred to or deposited with the court.
H. A person who purchases property from a former spouse, a relative of a former spouse or any other person for value and without notice or who receives from a former spouse, a relative of a former spouse or any other person a payment or other item of property in partial or full satisfaction of a legally enforceable obligation is neither obligated under this section to return the payment, item of property or benefit nor is liable under this section for the amount of the payment or the value of the item of property or benefit. However, a former spouse, a relative of a former spouse or any other person who, not for value, received a payment, an item of property or any other benefit to which that person is not entitled under this section is obligated to return the payment, item of property or benefit to the person who is entitled to it under this section or is personally liable for the amount of the payment or the value of the item of property or benefit.
I. For the purpose of this section:
1. "Disposition or appointment of property" includes a transfer of an item of property or any other benefit to a beneficiary designated in a governing instrument.
2. "Divorce or annulment" means any divorce or annulment or any dissolution or declaration of invalidity of a marriage that would exclude the spouse as a surviving spouse within the meaning of section 14-2802 but does not include a decree of separation that does not terminate the status of husband and wife.
3. "Divorced person" includes a person whose marriage has been annulled.
4. "Governing instrument" means an instrument executed by the divorced person before the divorce or annulment of that person’s marriage to that person’s former spouse.
5. "Relative of the divorced person’s former spouse" means a person who is related to the divorced person’s former spouse by blood, adoption or affinity and who, after the divorce or annulment, is not related to the divorced person by blood, adoption or affinity.
6. "Revocable", with respect to a disposition, appointment, provision or nomination, means one under which the divorced person, at the time of the divorce or annulment, was alone empowered by law or under the governing instrument to cancel a designation in favor of that person’s former spouse or former spouse’s relative, whether or not the divorced person was then empowered to designate himself or herself in place of that person’s former spouse or in place of the former spouse’s relative and whether or not the divorced person then had the capacity to exercise the power.