Marriage of Corvese and Pytel CA4/2
Opinion
Opinion
FACTS
Tamara Corvese and Anthony Pytel were married for 19 years and raised two
children together—a son and a daughter, who are now adults. During the marriage,
Tamara took care of the children and managed the household while Anthony, the sole
income-earner, managed all the financial decisions for the family.
Among the many issues the couple disputed during their divorce was the status of
the family residence, which occupies two lots on Lingo Lane in Palm Desert (one lot
contains the residence; the other a swimming pool). Tamara listed the residence as
community property in her divorce petition; Anthony listed it as his separate property in
his response.
The Lingo Lane residence has been in Anthony’s family since the late 1960s,
when his father purchased it after returning home from the Vietnam War. Tamara and
Anthony were married in 1997. The following year, Anthony’s parents helped the couple
2 purchase their first home by obtaining a veteran’s loan. For the approximately five years
the couple lived in their first home, they paid the mortgage payments on the loan, and
Anthony owned the property with his parents as tenants in common.