Sales Price of Luxury TN Real Property Reduced after Divorce
Tennessee law case summary on sales price of real estate after divorce from the Court of Appeals.
Elizabeth Ann Morrow Granoff v. Andrew Scott Granoff – Tennessee divorce property division – sales price after divorce
The husband and wife were married for 21 years before their 2006 divorce. Among their assets was a luxury estate in White Pine, Tennessee, consisting of a 9,000 square foot home, a guest house, a swimming pool, and tennis courts, situated on 26 acres. Under the parties’ marital dissolution agreement, the husband was allowed to remain on the property, subject to paying prime interest rate on $460,000. The property was to be sold within six years, with the proceeds divided.
Over the coming years, various contempt petitions were filed, but in 2011, the court made an order incorporating an agreement of the parties that the estate would be sold. In 2013, the wife obtained a purchase agreement to sell the property for $925,000, less than what the husband had expected the property to fetch. She went to court to have the sale approved. The trial court granted her request, and gave her authority to convey the property on her signature alone.
The husband then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. He argued that the trial court should not have approved the sale, and that the wife had not acted in good faith in accepting the $925,000 offer.
The appeals court first noted that since there had been a marital dissolution agreement, general contract law principles applied to its interpretation and enforcement. It also noted that value of property is a fact question, and that the trial court is at liberty to value property within the range of values suggested by the evidence.
The appeals court carefully reviewed the trial court’s findings as to the value of the property, and concluded that the evidence preponderated in favor of those findings. The husband had testified that the property was worth $1.7 million, and based that on tax appraisals. But the appeals court looked at the testimony of the wife’s experts. One of those was the listing agent, Ms. Johnnie Creel. Auctioneer David Posey also testified as to his opinion of the property’s value.
The appeals court noted that the lower court had given weight to these opinions, as well as to the fact that the property had been on the market for eight years.
The court also examined the evidence as to the wife’s good faith, and agreed with the trial court that she had acted in good faith in accepting the purchase offer.
For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed and assessed the costs of the appeal against the husband.
No. E2013-02598-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Sept. 26, 2014).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Property Division in Tennessee Divorce.
