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In re the Marriage of Capparelli
Marcello Capparelli and Catherine Cho Capparelli were married for 16 years. During the last 10 years of their marriage, Marcello Capparelli wasn’t employed. After inheriting nearly $1.5 million following his mother’s death, he invested those proceeds and earned income from those investments.
Catherine Cho Capparelli, on the other hand, was employed throughout the marriage. She earned more than $195,000 a year during the two years preceding the dissolution of the marriage.
In January 2023, the district court dissolved the parties’ marriage and entered permanent orders. Before dividing the marital estate, the court considered whether the proceeds from the sale of the marital home and the line of credit debt against one of Marcello Capparelli’s investment accounts should be considered marital property.
Regarding the proceeds from the marital home, the district court found that Catherine Cho Capparelli had presented sufficient evidence to trace the funds used to purchase the marital home to her pre-marriage ownership of another property and gifts from her mother. It awarded her a separate property interest of $288,609 in the marital home.
On the credit debt, the court found that Marcello Capparelli used part of it to pay for his living expenses, but that his spending was far in excess of any reasonable needs. It concluded that $63,077 of that debt was separate debt.
After distributing the marital property, the court awarded the husband maintenance of $2,195 per month for eight years and two months.
Marcello Capparelli appealed, arguing that the district court erred when it designated $288,069 of the proceeds from the sale of the marital home as Catherine Cho Capparelli’s separate property and $63,077 of the line of credit debt as his separate liability. The Colorado Court of Appeals agreed with both arguments.
The appeals court found that the evidence presented at the permanent orders hearing was inadequate to overcome the strong presumption that the jointly titled homes were marital property, and that the evidence didn’t support the district court’s finding that $288,609 of the home’s proceeds were Catherine Cho Capparelli’s separate property.
The appeals court also found that the district court failed to make any detailed findings to explain how it came up with liability split on Marcello Capparelli’s line of credit and concluded that the court was required to allocate it in its division of the marital estate.
The appeals court reversed the property division portion of the permanent orders and remanded the case to the district court for reconsideration of that issue and of maintenance.
April Arnold, Ronald Brown, Roy Brown, Mary Alley and Jack Waldrop owned a 40-acre property located in Washington County as tenants in common. Arnold owned an undivided one-quarter interest in the property, which was granted to her by quitclaim and trustee’s warranty deeds executed in 2007.
For reasons not clear from the record, according to the opinion, at some unstated time the Washington County assessor assigned separate parcel identification numbers to Arnold’s interest and the remaining three-quarters interest. As a consequence, Arnold and the owners’ of the other interest were separately billed for their shares of the taxes assessed against the property as a whole.
In 2011, the owners of the three-quarters interest failed to pay their portion of taxes, and the Washington County treasurer issued a notice of delinquent taxes—but only with respect to the three-quarters interest and only to the owners of that interest. A tax lien was later issued on that interest only and, in 2012, the treasurer issued notice of a pending sale of the lien. Arnold was not notified of the sale. In December 2014, Nelson Brent purchased the purported tax lien.
In August 2017, the treasurer issued Brent a treasurer’s deed purportedly conveying the three-quarters interest in the property to him. Arnold learned about that deed after Brent sent her a letter in December 2017 asking to buy her interest.
In October 2022, Arnold filed a quiet title complaint to determine ownership of the property. She alleged that the treasurer’s deed was void or voidable because a tax lien must be sold for an entire piece of property and because she didn’t receive notice of the tax lien sale or Brent’s request for the treasurer’s deed. Brent filed an answer and counterclaim for partition.
The district court found that Arnold wasn’t entitled to a notice of the tax lien sale or Brent’s request for the issuance of the treasurer’s deed. It concluded the deed wasn’t void and granted Brent’s request to partition the property. It awarded the rest of the property to Brent and made Arnold responsible for 25% of the costs associated with partitioning the property.
Arnold appealed. Her main argument was that the district court erred by determining that the treasurer’s deed was not void or voidable. The Colorado Court of Appeals agreed that the district court erred by not determining the deed to be void.
The appeals court concluded that the district court erred by failing to declare the deed void because it originated from a tax lien issued and sold by the treasury contrary to statute.
The appeals court reversed the district court’s judgment determining the treasurer’s deed to be valid and it reversed the partition order of the property. On remand, the district court must enter an order declaring the treasurer’s deed void and determine and award Arnold her reasonable costs associated with bringing her quiet title complaint, defending against Brent’s counterclaim and pursuing the appeal.