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Marital Debt Used for Spouse's Benefit
© 2004 National Legal Research Group, Inc.
CONNECTICUT: Casey v. Casey, 82 Conn. App. 378, 844 A.2d 250 (2004).
The trial court erred in burdening the wife with the entire mortgage on the marital home, where the debt proceeds had been used in part for the benefit of the husband's airplanes. After a five-year marriage, the court did not err by failing to divide the parties' retirement benefits.
The Connecticut Appellate Court reversed the decision of the Superior Court in dividing marital assets and allocating marital debt. The wife was awarded 64.7% of the nonpension marital assets but was also allocated 82.2% of the marital debt. Specifically, the wife received the marital residence subject to a substantial mortgage.
The findings showed that the wife had sold her own home and used the proceeds to partially finance a more expensive marital residence with a higher mortgage. Additional funds generated by the refinancing were then used by the husband to pay off loans and make repairs on several airplanes which he owned. The husband directly benefited by the amount of $245,000 from the refinancing. These airplanes were then awarded to the husband as part of the marital distribution order.
The appeals court found no support in the statutory criteria for permitting the wife to leave the marriage saddled with a sizeable mortgage debt when the proceeds of the increased debt inured almost exclusively to the husband's benefit and when he was awarded the property (his airplanes) that enjoyed an appreciation in value and net equity as a result of the mortgage debt. The court found this to be particularly true where it was shown that the wife would likely be unable to make the monthly payments and faced the prospect of defaulting on the mortgage or selling the property in the near future.
As to the wife's claim that the court below had erred in failing to divide equally those portions of the parties' retirement accounts which accrued during the marriage, the appeals court found no abuse of discretion despite a demonstration that, by allowing each party to retain their own accounts which they brought into the five-year marriage, the husband received 92% and the wife received 8% of the value of the combined sum. There is no set formula the trial court was obligated to apply and it did not have to divide equally, or in any manner, the portion of the parties' pensions accruing during the marriage.
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