Residence Bought by Husband Transmuted into Marital Property

The husband in this Rutherford County, Tennessee, case had purchased what would become the marital residence about four years before the parties married in 2011.  They had one child, and the wife filed for divorce in 2018.  The pretrial proceedings included an emergency hearing after the mother discovered nude pictures of the child, taken by the father, on the child’s cell phone.  The case eventually went to trial, and the trial court made a ruling as to the marital residence.  The court held that, while the residence had originally been the husband’s separate property, it had transmuted into marital property.  It valued the property at approximately $602,000, the average of the parties’ respective testimony.  It ordered the property sold and the proceeds divided.

The husband appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals, which first addressed the classification of the property.  The husband argued that it should have remained his separate property.

The trial court had found that the parties intended to treat it as marital property, and that marital assets had been used toward its upkeep.  After reviewing the evidence, including the wife’s non-financial contributions, the Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling.

The husband was more successful in contesting the valuation of the property.  The husband had offered an appraisal of the property at the time of the divorce.  The wife relied on her own testimony as to the value, and it was unclear as to the exact timing of that valuation. Based on this state of the record, the appeals court held that the husband’s appraisal should have controlled, and modified the judgment to reflect that valuation.

The appeals court also addressed issues relating to the parenting plan before affirming the lower court’s judgment as modified.