In Re Marriage of Stoll

The trial judge refused to allow the husband in a dissolution proceeding to render an opinion as to the value of his separate property house at the time he acquired it. The house later became community property. Because the trial judge refused the husband’s proffered testimony, he consequently ruled that the husband had failed to trace any separate interest in the property. The result is a judgment of dissolution which confers a windfall on the wife by determining that the house was 100 percent community property.

We reverse. The trial judge simply failed to apprehend the distinction between tracing a separate interest to its source—to which case law has traditionally appended a recordkeeping requirement—with an owner’s right to render an opinion as to the value of his or her own property—for which there are no per se documentary requirements. Because the concerns which animate the recordkeeping requirements of tracing contributions to a separate property source do not logically apply where there is no dispute about the source, the trial court erred.

Facts

Alan originally acquired the family residence on Laurinda Lane in 1968 when he was married to his first wife,…