Can you exercise the out-of-the-money long leg of my spread position only if my in-the-money short leg is assigned?

Spread positions can have unique expiration risks associated with them. In the case of U.S. securities options, the OCC will automatically exercise option contracts at expiration only if the option is In-the-Money by $0.01 or greater. If both legs of your expiring option spread are In-the-Money, then the long leg will be auto exercised by the OCC and the short may be assigned. It is possible that a short expiring option leg that finishes In-the-Money is lapsed by the owner and you will not be assigned. For non-U.S. options, please refer to the…

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In the case of U.S. securities options, the OCC will automatically exercise option contracts at expiration only if the option is in-the-money by $0.01 or greater.

As a result, account holders maintaining a call (put) spread with the short leg having a lower (higher) strike price that the long are subject to delivery risk if the short leg is in-the-money by $0.01 or greater and the long leg is not…

While it is unlikely that holders of in-the-money long options will elect to let the option lapse without exercising them, certain holders may do so due to transaction costs or risk considerations. In conjunction with its expiration processing, OCC will assign option exercises to short position holders via a random lottery process which, in turn, is applied by brokers to their customer accounts. It is possible through these random processes that short positions in your account be part of those which were not assigned…