property your honour's we are asking the court to reverse the trial court's decision and grant a word of maintenance to jerry back in the summer thirty two thousand four hundred sixty seven dollars ninety cents over the course of ten months further we're asking the court to reverse the decision to nine or reimbursement for his non marital contribution and awarded him the sum of fifty one thousand dollars for his for his contribution to the building of the outbuilding on the calculations statutory calculations to make it so that no matter what county you might have an illinois matter who the judge was who the attorneys were two parties walked in they would get came out it was to to apply some type of consistency to the into words that were occurring from adding the gender or any other facts except for parties income and if we look at just the numbers in this case it would be a maintenance even though the parties were married for only forty nine months the ordered for a merger was five years here where you are and i'm not especially since the new change in the law where it does now from a year were really before the change you're not i have not found one where it's less than five years arguing that the trial judge desired very scary story in the grounds of gender bias there i think that is also that's one factor but i think that the fact that the legislative and purposely put a duration for less than five years that wise to account for those make those cases where party for marriage less than five years left there never wanted to do that and just wanted to follow the case law and say marriage is less than five years no maintenance it would have never included that like gender bias or this morning we're the argument that the judge can gauge didn't have anything in the record for that either i'm just wondering the specially given this other factors in section five zero four before you even get to the equation those factors do weigh in favor of i mean it's a word with the difference and the drastic difference in the parties and comes one party or thing or times as much as the other party also the parties had a standard of living where they had a combined income of one hundred eighty seven thousand dollars combined with a household perhaps that sold for three hundred twenty seven thousand dollars that and with a mortgage and two hundred twenty five the forty five thousand dollars that were accounted for in the statue i also think that it does have some deference where does the law draw the line is if we're just going to say that one of the factors yet it's a short factor then why then have another i guess application where the court could award maintenance and have a formula for it it seems almost contradictory say we can press our hand on it's just a short term marriage but then is what to do when there is a short term marriage and watch award and i think in cases where there's such a drastic disparity in the parties incomes that's when maintenance is appropriate even if it is for short duration it is enough to get the other party back on a level playing well back into where they can support themselves which is the policy behind main aims is to help the less earning spouse maintain a standard of living and get back to position now that they're instead of one household they're two households and in speaking of to the building of this out building a building that was built separately and we were able to clearly trace at the trial for the fines from mr bracken's non marital presidents to his bank account to all of the sub contractors to all the parts that went to go build this building missing back in one room involved in it and we able to piece this these funds never lost their identity they're now just in the form of an outbuilding that happened to be on their m of what's mine and what's yours even in a marriage i think there's some expectation that if i put fifty one thousand dollars a large amount of money i'm going to expect back it's a little different than if i put fifty one thousand dollars inside the actual marital residence this is he didn't pay down the market she didn't improve inside the box merrill residence it's actually a separate building or is not marital business to store there what may not it is separate from the actual household i happen to be on the line as well but i do think there is an building is still yours but the land is still the other person so if you look at the nominal state and the merrill state as almost two separate entities which of course fall doesn't look at them as two separate entities they are separate states you can say his no marital state built that out building on the marital property with american obvious consent but it's still his non marital property even though it except patch the land when they sold this house he should be entitled to reimbursement especially when he clearly sixty four thousand dollars in a matter of three years would be addictive and the only improvement they really made was adding outbuilding probably doesn't just drastically increase that are in a rural area with her account i think that would show that this outbuilding it intact but i don't think the impact on the value has to deal with the recent birthday it would if we wanted a larger portion of the distribution of the marital state and all and the court  by and we do argue in our turn to do that if transmission transmutation does occur and it's a marital property bad because of his larger contribution and because if there has been an increase in the value of the property they could  awarded a larger portion of america proceeds to mr brackett for that contribution of fifty one thousand dollars it's just a little coincidental that fifty one thousand dollars it increased by sixty four thousand dollars in a matter of three years when they statutory duration of the marriage in his argument throughout history but before we get to either the statutory amount or the sash for a duration the legislature has given us fourteen and given the trial court fourteen different factors it should consider  before it decides if the statutory guidelines should apply the trial court in this case considered each and every one of those factors in its ruling it did focus on the duration the rather short duration of approximately four years if folks on the needs of the parties there was no evidence that mr bracken presented up short fall in fact mr bracken purchased a different vehicle weeks after the party separated with no contribution from mrs brack at the current focus on the lifestyle established during marriage there was one vacation that mrs bracket paid for when she got her dream job earning a proximately hundred thousand dollars a year the parties evenly divided on all of their marital obligations throughout the marriage the parties did have a three hundred twenty seven thousand dollar home and neither party could afford to maintain such a home after the dissolution of the marriage the court specifically considered the time necessary for the party seeking marriage to obtain education mr bracken made an argument that he needed additional time to seek an education he after the party separated i signed up for two classes and ended up having to drop one of them while working basically a part time job the part of the trial court considered the marital estate on the non of forty six thousand eight hundred eighty eight dollars and twenty five cents without including the value of his non marital this is the court also considered contributions by mr  mrs bracken's education mrs bracken did complete a master's degree during the party's marriage which she paid for with her g i bill student loan she is who owned and maintained a full time job while contributing towards one half of all marital expenses parties even divided the cost i mean this was clearly not a me case the trial court was not biased at all in determining that this was not a made its case gender never played a part in the trial court's decision there were no comments made there was virtually no evidence of any bias and we would respectfully disagree that the trial for  biased at all turning to the fifty one thousand dollars or nonmetal contribution to the marital state the standard of review is against the manifest weight of the evidence and in order to overcome the presumption of a gift to the marital state parties need to show clear convincing  affairs loan three months after the party's purchase the marriage purchased the purchase of a home which was purchase as a tendency by the entirety mr bracken to use the proceeds from his non marital home to build a  this is similar to using the proceeds from the non marital home to remodel the kitchen it's attached to the land goes with the lame the building and structures became part of the land at no point in time did the parties partition any of the property it was sold as a whole interestingly mr brackett had at least four opportunities to let mrs bracken know that he expected this money to be r kind of let her know when he built the build when you can it recently built the building he couldn't let her know when they parties were discussing a ten year plan to relocate and south america presidents didn't bring it up then testimony trial pointed out that the parties to discuss moving to dallas texas for mr brackets he had an opportunity then to say hey i put this one thousand and i want the fifty one thousand back never did it at the beginning of the dissolution of marriage case mr brackett was served with that or operates one of those in iraq tories asked please list your non marital property he never less that that was the fourth opportunity that he had to bring it out it wasn't until a few weeks before trial that mr bracken said oh by the way i'd like this fifty one why didn't you ask for this money and his response was because we were married and i assume we were we would stay if that is not clear convincing and unmistakable evidence that he had absolute that this was a gift to the marital of state argued that he should be entitled if this court is not going to grant him the fifty one thousand dollars back that she did he should be entitled to a disproportionate division of the marital status well he's already received a disproportionate mention on the marital state he did  agreeing the parties stipulated to a number of exhibits one of which was a division of a proposed division of the marital estate which the trial or granted as the parties her student in the division of the marital estate the spreadsheet merely said sharif paints rather than full final number at the end completed in a timely manner he's gotten everything that he asked for and to say that the fifty one thousand dollars wasn't a gift to the marital state when he never mentioned that he expected any time any reimbursement for it is  across the south no partition was made of the outbuilding that the property could have been easily divided and if mr bracken wanted to keep it running a business or whatever out of the building he could have done that he did non marital funds were used to pay down a marital mortgage at the trial the only evidence presented is testimony that the party who contributed the funds had no against it's well i would argue that exact opposite is true if the parties were so intent on keeping their finances separate which they were then how do you not say i want this money back  an expectation on a married couple to discuss reimbursements in the case of dissolution of marriages it's unreasonable i don't think the court intended it almost the same like we want everyone to get a prenuptial agreement and short of a written agreement you're not going to really be able to overcome that get a perception that there are cases where that gift presumption was overclaim by the parties actions and by the parties living separately and by the parties maintaining control of the building or the property that they've bought placing having expecting people to discuss this and parlay person to know if i put fifty one thousand dollars of my money that i have before that i have to then tell my wife i want that back for sure  if we get divorced i don't think that's the intention of the reimbursement the reimburse the statute under file very clearly states and lays out that if there comingle and you can clearly trace it and that the nominal state or the marital state would be entitled to reimbursement and all the presumptions including that get all refundable by clear and very convincing evidence the division and in regard to the division and on equal distribution that the parties agreed to this division the business that it was producing and the income of the forty five thousand dollars it doesn't match up to the number of contribution that he put in or the the case of an re marriage of the factors as the parties incomes there's a big discrepancy in these parties incomes hearing's nearly four times as much as he does the next one is the standard of living these parties lived in a household and had a combined gross income of one hundred eighty eight eighty seven thousand dollars a year and only forty five thousand dollars was heads further i think and forty nine months going to try to trip out of the country is a lavish lifestyle and although the parties divided their expenses that doesn't mean she was able to pay all the expenses without her contributions and in fact even after the dissolution was filed and she moved out of the house to continue to pay the mortgage she continued to happen in the household bills so the house could be sold because his income alone wasn't going to cut it you know we will we ask that if you're going to consider the party so is leaving such financial separate lives but you also consider that why would two people living separate from and to live as roommates why would they ever get fifty one thousand dollars the other party it just