Opinion ID: 2581632
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Investment Account

Text: Chad also argues that the court erred in classifying as marital property an investment account opened with funds given to him by his mother. He claims that this gift was an advancement on his inheritance that remained his separate property throughout the marriage. The superior court found that these funds were transmuted into marital property when Chad transferred them from an account in his name alone into an account in the parties' joint names. This finding is not clearly erroneous. Molly Miller gifted Chad $230,000 in 1998. With these funds he opened an investment account in his own name at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, listing Violeta and his children as beneficiaries of equal shares in the event of his death. Approximately one year later, these funds were transferred to a joint account in the names of both Chad and Violeta. Under this account the parties were joint tenants with rights of survivorship, so if one party died before the other, the surviving spouse would receive the entire account balance. At trial Chad testified that he transferred the funds to a joint account so that if he died before Violeta the funds would transfer to her without going through probate, but that he was fully in control of the account because it was his inheritance. Inherited property is separate, even if received during marriage, though it can be transmuted into marital property where that is the intent of the owner. [22] There is a strong presumption that placing separate property into a joint account demonstrates an intent to treat the property as marital. [23] Thus, absent evidence to the contrary, Chad's decision to move the funds into a joint account will be viewed as a demonstration of his intent to treat the property as marital. [24] Chad argues that this presumption is rebutted by Violeta's testimony that she never tried to access the funds and by Chad's testimony that the joint account was created strictly for probate purposes. While Violeta testified that she never attempted to access funds from the joint account, she also stated that she considered the account to be marital property because her name was on it, and that the parties used these funds for ongoing household expenses such as taxes. The trial court found that the fact that Violeta never made withdrawals from the account was insignificant given Chad's general unwillingness to allow Violeta to participate in major decisions or to exercise control over the family's finances. Furthermore, the evidence does not support Chad's claim that account ownership was changed solely for probate purposes. At trial Chad testified that he put the account in joint ownership in 1999 on the recommendation of his mother because of the delays and costs the family experienced dealing with the probate process after the death of Chad's father. Chad claimed that joint ownership would ensure that Violeta got the funds automatically upon his death. But earlier he also testified that the house was put into his name alone based upon the advice of his mother because she knows about probate and it would be best if [the house] was in my name free and clear, before I get married, so that if something did go wrong later with the marriage, that [Violeta] couldn't try to take the whole thing. It appears that Chad's father died in the early 1980s, well before Molly's gift of the Anchorage home in 1988 and her subsequent cash gift in 1998. If the ownership decisions were made to avoid problems with probate, it would make little sense to maintain sole title to the home while placing the investment account in joint ownership. The trial court's finding that the investment account transmuted to marital property was not clearly erroneous.