Jandorf v. Jandorf

FISCHER, Judge. This appeal is brought by Ralph L. Jandorf, appellant, who seeks review of a decision by the Circuit Court for Baltimore County in a divorce action brought by Sharon A. Jandorf, appellee. Appellant presents issues as follows: 1. Did the trial judge err in his determination and valuation of the marital property of the parties? 2.

Did the trial judge err in his failure to grant a monetary award to the appellant, in light of the evidence presented at trial? The parties were married on November 10, 1968, in Baltimore by a religious ceremony. The children born of the union are now emancipated. A separation, which has continued without interruption, occurred on July 4, 1989, when the wife (appellee) left the family home.

Neither party seeks alimony, and the only matters at issue are those of property and monetary award. In 1968, prior to the marriage, appellant purchased, in his name alone, 1 real property located at 116 Sudbrook Lane in Baltimore County. The purchase price was $23,900. The property was sold for $30,000, and the testimony was that the ⁴³³ surplus funds received were used in part to purchase personal property, including furniture, and for improvements to the subsequent marital home at 3705 Buckingham Road in Baltimore County.

The Buckingham Road property is the primary focus of this appeal. This property was the home of appellant’s parents and was inherited by appellant upon the death of his mother, Ruby Jandorf. At the time of her death, the property was appraised at $40,500. Subsequent to Mrs. Jandorf s death, appellant sold the Sudbrook Lane property and moved into Buckingham Road as the marital home.

During the process of settling his mother’s estate, appellant deeded Buckingham Road from the estate to the appellant and appellee as tenants by the entireties. Testimony showed that, at the time of Mrs. Jandorf s death, a small mortgage of $7,000 was due on the Buckingham Road property. The parties subsequently paid this mortgage from marital funds and that payment constitutes the marital contribution to the Buckingham Road property. On November 24, 1986, the parties obtained a $25,000 loan from appellee’s credit union, and a lien was placed on Buckingham Road as security for the debt.

All of the payments on the loan, found by the circuit court to total $11,792, were paid by appellee through payroll deductions. The trial court, apparently, refused to consider, or even hear, any testimony related to whether personal property owned by the parties was marital or non-marital or of its value. At trial: THE COURT: Let me ask you this. I don’t have a problem with the house, but what about all the furniture and contents; have they agreed how they are going to distribute that?

MRS. FIELDS: No, Your Honor. THE COURT: Tell them, while we’re taking the time that the Bollinger rule is in force, they agree on the pots, pans and chattel or they don’t in fifteen minutes agree, it gets sold, a trustee is appointed, it is sold at auction and all ⁴³⁴ proceeds will be divided equally after the trustee and the auctioneer get their proceeds, which will leave them about fifty cents on the dollar. I don’t sit here and decide where the pots and pans go.

MR. BAUMOHL: The only issue is whether or not its non-marital or marital. THE COURT: They will decide chattels or that is what I will do. Now, I will be glad to take any testimony on the house or on the divorce, if we’re proceeding on that.

Following the hearing, the court announced that it was granting an absolute divorce to appellee on the ground of a two year separation. The court thereafter received memoranda from counsel and rendered its written Opinion and Order on February 2, 1993. In his opinion, the trial judge stated that the only remaining issues for the court to consider were marital property and any monetary award. The applicable remainder of the opinion is as follows: This Court has reviewed the Joint Statement of the parties and finds that the property agreed to as marital property listed in Paragraph 1 is marital property, with the values indicated.

For those items that have a fair market value listed as unknown, the Court has received no evidence as to their value and, therefore, they will be valued at zero (0). The parties also agree that the property listed under Paragraph 2 of the Joint Statement is not marital property as agreed and, therefore, said non-marital property shall remain in the possession of the titled entity. Paragraph 3 of the Joint Statement concerns the main asset involved in this dispute, and that is the home at 3705 Buckingham Road. The Court finds that the personal property listed under paragraph 3 is, in fact, marital property, and assigns the values indicated on the Joint Statement.

With respect to all the personal property so indicated on the Joint Statement, within thirty (30) days from the date of this Opinion and Order the parties will agree to voluntarily ⁴³⁵ distribute their knives and spoons, furniture and other personal items; or this Court will order all property sold by the Court Auditor, Mr. John Mudd, and after payment of his fees, commissions and expenses of sale the remainder, if any, will be equally divided between the parties. As to the home at 3705 Buckingham Road, the present fair market value the Court finds to be $110,000.00; and the Court does find that this property is part marital and part non-marital. The liens against the property in the amount of $21,000.00 in the name of the wife alone the Court finds to be marital debt. In view of this the present equity in the home the Court finds to be $89,000.00.

In addition, the Court finds that the non-marital property to be in the amount of $40,500.00, which is the value of the home when it was inherited by the husband. Thus the Court finds the marital equity to be $48,500.00. This Court further finds that the wife has made the payments on the loans, which is a lien on the property, and finds that the wife has made 88 payments in the amount of $134.00 for a total amount of $11,792.00. The Court awards credits in the amount of these payments to the wife, i.e. $5,896.00.

With a balance to be distributed in the amount of $42,604.00 the Court orders one-half of this amount to be paid to the Plaintiff wife, the amount of $21,302.00, for a total payment to the wife, counting the credits for the loan in the amount of $27,198.00. In view of the above, the Court declines to consider any additional monetary award after giving due consideration to all the factors enumerated in Section 8-205 of the Family Law Article, Maryland Code Annotated. And it is further ordered that the award to the Plaintiff wife is hereby reduced to judgment in favor of the wife and against the husband; and, in the event the Defendant husband cannot make adequate arrangements to purchase his interest from the wife, the home is to be sold and the ⁴³⁶ amounts distributed in accordance with this Opinion and Order. An appropriate starting point for our analysis of this case is to set out the practical effect of what the trial court did.

The court made a $27,198 monetary award to the wife. In addition, the court ordered that “in the event the Defendant husband cannot make adequate arrangements to purchase his interest from the wife, the home is to be sold and the amounts distributed in accordance with this Opinion and Order.” Assuming that appellee were to force a sale of the property, she would receive one-half of the net proceeds plus $27,198 from appellant’s share of the proceeds. The approximate net proceeds would be $110,000 less the $21,000 joint debt of the parties which is a lien upon the property. The amount remaining for division is $89,000.

From this amount, appellant would receive $44,500 less the $27,198 monetary award for a net of $17,302. Appellee would receive $44,500 plus the $27,198 monetary award for a net of $71,698. Since appellant’s non-marital interest in the property is 85.3% of its value, this does not appear to be an equitable distribution to us and is probably not what the trial court intended. It may be that the court anticipated that appellant would be reimbursed the $40,500, which the court found to be appellant’s non-marital interest in the Buckingham Road property.

But this is not possible under the court’s Opinion and Order. Md.Code (1984, 1991 Repl.Vol.), § 8-202(a)(3) of the Family Law Article provides that the court may not transfer the ownership of real property from one person to another except as provided in § 8-205 (monetary award). In Kline v. Kline, 85 Md.App. 28, 44 , 581 A.2d 1300 (1990), cert. denied, 322 Md. 240 , 587 A.2d 246 (1991), 2 we held: ⁴³⁷ “The court, when it grants a divorce, cannot return to the grantor spouse the legal interest that he or she had earlier given just because the gift was of nonmarital property; to do so would violate § 8—202(a)(3) of the Act, which expressly prohibits the divorce court from transferring ownership of property, real or personal, from one spouse to the other. Watson [v. Watson], 77 Md.App. [622] at 631, 632, 551 A.2d 505 [ (1989) ].

See also Rogers v. Rogers, 80 Md.App. 575, 586 , 565 A.2d 361 (1989); Nisos v. Nisos, 60 Md.App. 368,