A friend of mine is getting divorced in California. Their spouse owned a home that increased in value during the marriage. How does the Moore-Marsden calculation work when determining the amount to which they are entitled?
TIA.
One bump.
C’mon guys. I was bragging to my friend that I would get an answer within hours.
I’m not your lawyer, or your friend’s lawyer, and what follows isn’t legal advice.
I’d never heard of the Moore Marsden rule before (or if I’d heard of it, it was only in the heady weeks studying for the bar, but I don’t think we covered it). So I am utterly unqualified to answer your question. Yet here I am; rely on what follows at your peril.
It’s an interesting question; a friend asked me about it the other day – what happens when one person owns a home, and then community property is used to pay the mortgage following marriage. I said, gee, dunno. Then I saw your question.
So I googled, and this page has a formula that takes into account appreciation. I can’t vouch for the formula, nor can I say whether California uses that formula. But you’ll note that the last term is for pre-marriage and post-marriage appreciation.
So the gist of it is that the Moore-Marsden rule appears to take into account not just the expenditure of funds on the separate property, but appears to consider them to be akin to an investment, whereby the community benefits from the increase in value of the separate property.