farm tweed to farmers and they just happen to marry and that's what this case comes down to they had two tracks of farm life track to which they acquired nine ninety six which ha from the beginning and basically they both participated in running the farm and doing the work on the farm this was in the time mary free had a wife just taking care of the kids and doing the hard work in the house she was out there farming also and it shows in this case because matter to them both was the farm like my client wanted all the farm lot of both tracks he was willing to pay for homestead was willing to forego a huge amount of money to accomplish it so the trial court judge p c he did a solid if they simply said we have two tracks here track two for the wife we submit that it was just a look at it in regard to the parties as they came before the court we have a wife who was working throughout on the far but wasn't employed outside the home my client in addition to working on the farm was employed outside the home earning seventy three thousand here we submit that while judge pace basically to say this is done see like the rich but cash poor she received track two and then and this was all her post the court basically accepted her total she ended up with the land track two plus twenty five thousand approximately an ira is in five thousand her bank in other words after of twenty five year marriage you got your land that's what you want but very little in the way of cash if my clients pose i've been accepted she would never received any one but she would have received five hundred sixty eight thousand dollars and she would have received it if my client both of the simply purchase hand without paying any sort of capital gains tax without off nears fees without real estate commissions basically write a check judge pacey decided otherwise we have the party having land adjacent to each other and we submit there's going to be problems as a result of that some of the problems were brought up before the trial court now we understand that the trial court actually did agree with us on that are more equitable under the evidence concerning the dissolution of the twenty five year marriage so just basically recognize that there's potential problems and regardless he decided that it was still more equitable do it  interest i believe in the husband's corporation saying that wasn't proper that there were sufficient assets to all point that probably in the future any possibility problems in the future who would have been avoided by simply giving my getting in on his eighty access problems to the back eighty they discussed problems in regard to fencing because on the one eighty my client's father has run a cattle operation so there's going to be fence and oh yes there's going to be water problems between the two keeping the drain operating his father testified he was going to retire and get out of the cattle business unfortunately we don't have an adequate record in this case we have the bystanders i think that is age i think the trial court didn't wire about that and he said that he would eventually retire i don't think you put a on it regards to this situation on what she wanted he then turns around and gives a permanent make of two thousand dollars a month one third of the gross income of mr collins we just don't believe that was and the trial court didn't inquire but that was a retirement income how much would they suggest you take each year four percent maybe five percent the fact that she didn't know really any sort of just the whole you know this isn't the testimony where she came into court and said i can't own a living i just don't have any skills the testimony was completely the contrary and my client never disputed this we never disputed that she was a new tape or old element an important element in running that are they were both farmers as i said in this case of court did not fire as to what she could that she was an important part of the farming operation and we supported her attention that she was a still farmer because that's the simple truth face it regard to the farm life and getting back following i think the whole question about capital gains work and also we're talking about land that was purchased back to the night there's been a real run up in regard to value farmland in this case she could have received the value without any sort capital gains at all she'd have to invest it of course we understand that but we don't think this is a situation where the husband was trying to get off cheaply we've asked the court reverse and bring it back before i just basis retired now for whichever judge would be hearing it judge casey made any sort of air let alone reversible error the problem is that and while i appreciate that counsel is so concerned for my client the testimony that he is ignoring is that she wa very tight to the sly and that is what judge pace you heard we have to make sure if i was flipping through them i believe exhibit twenty eight or a series of photos would show when they moved in and i'm going to be honest it was just a crappy old farmhouse then we had the after photo after my client lived there put her sweat equity and change that farm house into a home she showed pictures of little i mean some of which she got for mother say that she state of illinois the bank only she will she testified she wanted to be buried on that car she was tied to that land and that's what the testimony wants now i very much appreciate that he's saying well we would have just bought it and with the shoe being on the other foot let me let me put that on for a while let me put on and pretend i'm representing mr johnson a magine if you didn't want that but that would be like you get all the property but you have to go out and borrow over a half a million dollars and give her half of your retirement and you have to service this debt in addition to trying to pay some maintenance on top of that that it didn't appear that would have been reversible  said yes i am and so i submit to you that this really isn't the case between mr and mrs downs you but the elder mr dancy and my client in terms of who were the winners and no one else from a ship on that but we had some question about him running his cattle again he has a third party who is not a part of this case there was no written lease with him there was nothing with regard to him running his cattle and in fact what they had done in the past is he would help them at times of harvest and at times of input in exchange for allowing them to have his cattle on his land nothing unusual about that but at the same time nothing written nothing it's significant and this property you know i mean it's real estate so it's been here since forever but for the last what twelve years it's been a farm together big deal i mean my client showed here's the tracks here's how you could do that she took out a white book and said this farm was always accessible independently as for however many years that it had been planted it had been since used as a separate farm and only in the last short period of time have they been farming it as a unit she she talked about the fact that all you had to do and in fact they had put up a fence to separate the two so that she could farm and he could farm with regard to there being any potential problems we haven't heard of any there hasn't been any subs anybodies rush back to florida in this case no one's come back in terms of trying to say there's any sort of problem and i realize that the court doesn't have that necessarily in the file but i guess the idea that there is no one has returned to court over this issue and there have they've gone through now a farming season some indication that there's really no problem it's just to me i have a difficult time trying to argue because it seems very obvious to me they had to aviate her tracks my i would also note that they were you all but i mean equitably in considering what each party was requesting and considering the evidence in front of him and when you talk about it what do i do think it's broader than just she got fifty can be come on let's just take this money and then you can move into town and a nice condo home that's not what she wanted that is not who she was and everything in terms of who she believed and i mean you know when you're talking about equity everything she understood her self to be had been destroyed by this marriage her children were split by this marriage her own husband had left her everything that she thought she had worked for all these years on and what did she have one assets it was a very fair equitable way to proceed and to be honest with you to force mr johnson to go out and borrow money to pay her for her share of the assets i think it's not fair the proposal though was then well then asked i think i would be up here saying he got one hundred percent of the property really yes i think that's fair i don't know that it is and and i don't think that this particular piece of property to my client is something that is funded over you can simply say here's the money it's the same thing i don't think it is for her it was not she defined herself by farming she defined herself as a mother she defined herself as a wife and several of those things had been destroyed as a result of this divorce and she wanted to keep at least part of who she was a safe human being the second issue that they have phrased this really the issue of maintenance i think that this idea that that was in error is not appropriate i cited the kercher case which of course just disconnect you wrote which basically talked about there being a classic case for maintenance and in this case you've got a twenty seven year marriage she's never worked the home office he's ever been in so far she's fifty one years old she has a high school education and the idea that she can branch herself out as a farmer i don't know that that is really a very effective idea and if you look at our exhibit i believe it's exhibit thirty eight which we have highlighted everywhere that mr elder mr gandhi had armed property i don't know how excepted she would have been in a farm community with  out with the father in law managing this and i know that that's nothing that is in the record and i know maybe you can consider that but the bottom line is you know we're dealing with a very small community a very tight knit people and i don't think very many people would have said hey let's go let's go hire your former daughter in law i don't think sitting at the green the elevator or the local coffee shop that would have thought oh well i'm being honest i don't think that the idea that she would be able to work in this area are being hired out to other people was necessarily anything that's it seems like a good idea but i don't know how practical result that would have actually meant to both questions however were not raised they were never that no one said can you do this if you didn't how far would you be able to farm for other people don't ask her about her capacity to farm outside of farming her own property nobody asked her about no there was no expert that said if you have fifty five hundred thousand dollars and you invested that what would your return be and would that be enough to live on if this if the party if the submission is that she would need to actually use that i think this district has made it very clear that you don't have to use your property awarded to support yourself that should where there is sufficient funds to pay maintenance of the maintenance amount and in this case with reasonable under the circumstances the court did consider the seventy three thousand dollars wages plus some of the farm because again the farm will split the farm income in the past have been eighteen thousand nine hundred so i don't know if casey does not make a finding on this i've heard judge casey did not make a finding on that however you know i think that's a reasonable response in terms of well she could probably receive about half of it mr johnson receive about half of it in terms of the income so with regard to that i think the amount of maintenance is appropriate the idea that it's permanent maintenance is also appropriate given the age of my client given the length of the marriage again this was she was only fifty one this was a twenty seven year marriage so over half of her life had been involved in terms of this marriage creating this this property and in terms of creating this property i want this court that thanks a little bit i don't i don't have the right front of me but one of these tracks of plan was for the personally three hundred sixty eight the other one what's in the record was more one of them had like a sixty three thousand dollar mortgage the other had a forty three thousand market these people purchased this is an inherited land this is something that during their marriage they work they created they farmed they paid down their mortgage this is something that they created during their marriage and that was done by both of their hard work incurred it including my client's hard work but her ability to turn that into something other than just having the property she had didn't seem very feasible to me but i think if you look at hours today the idea that you own a half a million dollars worth of farmland with very little mortgage on it seems to me to to point to the fact that these parties were successful in their farming operation they were able to pay down their mortgage during their marriage and that was something that they did together i did the division of property to me just seems to be very appropriate the idea of permanent maintenance given the age of my client or work history her ability to find employment elsewhere is appropriate in the amount of maintenance given  appropriate it's a couple of cases where someone made a million dollars and someone else made three hundred thousand dollars i agree that's what the north case and the other case say but dr north and one hundred seventeen thousand seven hundred dollars a month and the other gentleman is paying seven thousand five hundred the maintenance awards in those cases correspond with the incomes of the parties and noses likewise this is a smaller amount twenty four thousand dollars a year before insurance retirement accounts those sorts of things which would never be available to my client one final word and that is that idea of permanent maintenance as this work has permanent maintenance doesn't really mean permanent because if there's a substantial change cohabitation or the death of either party so per minute in this case well in all cases doesn't really mean permanent but it is in this case seems to be an appropriate amount appropriate at the time i don't think there this isn't some family base this is basically a farm an economic unit my client was willing to pay for he made no secret of that his for postal he was willing to pay for it this was an issue we're judged pacey divide up the land because nobody was going coming forward and saying we're willing to out the other party my client from the beginning was willing to buy out the other party i think that back time judge pacey enter five from the beginning in regard to the situation it's tough standard but this court occasionally does that sometimes it occurs this i think is an unusual case at least in most cases where i've been involved in regard to divorce all the times a situation where one party with economic resources just doesn't want to face up to the music and realize it's time to pay out a lot of money in this case it's unusual that my client was willing to do that and the other party for whatever reason was not willing to take that and wanted something different and the judge decided time to do something different in this case just  once again we think under five zero three feet it just wasn't a just result brought a party in this particular case in regards to the maintenance issue returning to that let's get rehabilitated maybe it's let's say the judge said two thousand and one for two years and we'll see how she's doing because she does have the skill set let's see how she's doing in the community farm if she isn't doing so well you know if she is doing well and attaining close to the income of mr darcy will stop at this point seventy three thousand isn't bad money livingston it's not repeat it's not dr surge of money type  money we would submit that as a farmer in livingston county it would be possible for her to come off that something that the court might well take in consideration with permanent maintenance will never thank