In Re Marriage of Marsden

Summary

Husband bought a Stanford leasehold and house in 1962 and married in 1971, and community funds later paid down the loan. The court held the trial court miscalculated the community interest by using the 1962 cost rather than the 1971 fair market value, so the Moore/Lucas/Aufmuth formula was adjusted to credit husband with prenuptial appreciation. It also affirmed that stock bought during marriage was community property, because his CPA's year-end worksheet did not trace purchases to specific separate funds, and it held pension benefits are valued at trial or on payment, not at separation. The property division judgment was reversed as to the house and leasehold and the resulting division, and the pension judgment was affirmed.

What it means for the financial analysis

For real property apportionment, the appraised value at the date of marriage may matter as the separate property base instead of the original purchase price, so the analysis should document both. For stock and account tracing, schedules built from year-end positions without matching each purchase to a specific account were held insufficient, so tracing work needs transaction-level support from bank and brokerage records.

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