Marital Residence Included at Least Some of Land Underlying It

Tennessee case summary on property division and classification in divorce.

Marilyn Kay Anderson v. James Cephas Anderson

The husband and wife in this Robertson County, Tennessee, case met in 1988 and were married in 1995.  Before they were married, the wife lived in the Nashville area and spent her weekends on her future husband’s farm in Robertson County.  Prior to the marriage, the husband owned aa 103 acre parcel jointly with his brother, and purchased an additional 197 acres in 1990.  The wife’s name was never added to the deed of either property.  The husband farmed, and the wife worked as a medical project manager.  When the parties were married, they moved into a trailer located on the 197 acre parcel.  They later built a house on this parcel.

In 2002, the husband and wife bought a third tract of land, and they held this parcel jointly.

After the parties separated, but before they divorced, the husband’s mother died, and he had a 90 day option to buy the family farm.  He did so, using money from the parties’ joint checking account.  The wife, however, had previously equally divided this account and withdrew “her half.”

The lower court held that the husband’s original property (the 103 acre parcel and the 197 acre parcel) were the husband’s sole property, and not marital property.  It held that the new house and a machine shed were marital property, but that only the value of this improvement was marital property, and no portion of the underlying real estate was joint property.  The property purchased after the separation was held to be the husband’s sole property since the wife had already withdrawn her half of the joint account.  The wife appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The court first addressed the 197 acre parcel—the one on which the home had been constructed.  The husband agreed that the house and shed were marital property, but the wife argued that some of the land should also have been included.

The appeals court agreed with the wife, and pointed out that the intent of the parties is the paramount factor.   It also noted that buildings erected on land generally become part of the real property.  Therefore, it held that the parties intended for at least a portion of the land to be their marital residence.  It remanded this portion of the case so that the lower court could determine how much of the land was intended to be part of the residence.

The wife next argued that the parcels previously owned by the husband had been transmuted into marital property.   The court conceded that there might have been some contribution by the wife to preserve the value of these properties, there was no evidence to show that the wife had made any contributions to increase the value.  Therefore, it affirmed the lower court’s ruling on this point.

Finally, the court turned to the status of the family farm that the husband had purchased after his mother’s death.  It agreed with the lower court’s ruling that the wife’s withdrawal of “her half” of this account meant that the property purchased with it was the husband’s sole property.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.

No. M2018-01248-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Aug.  16,  2019).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Property Division in Tennessee Divorce.