Opinion ID: 2053598
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: 16th Street Property

Text: The chancellor found that on May 15, 1944, one Theodore F. Ziegler executed a deed for the 16th Street property to the husband, D. Arthur Magaziner, and Albert H. Lieberman as trustees of Keystone and that a declaration of trust was executed to that effect. Keystone paid the $20,000 consideration. On November 15, 1945, the board of directors of Keystone passed a resolution authorizing the sale of the 16th Street property to the wife for $20,000 with Keystone taking a purchase money bond and mortgage in that amount. [5] Pursuant to that resolution, on December 28, 1945, the husband, Magaziner and Lieberman executed a deed for the property to the wife, which deed was duly recorded. Two years later, on August 18, 1947, the husband obtained from the wife a transfer of the property to the parties as tenants by the entireties. Thereafter, the husband increased the mortgage on the premises over a period of years and used the proceeds of the mortgage for his own purposes. The husband contends that, while a transfer from a wife to a husband alone creates a rebuttable presumption that a trust is created in favor of the wife, a transfer from a wife to husband and wife as tenants by the entireties created a gift to the husband. However, the husband overlooks two facts: first, since a confidential relationship existed between the parties, a transfer from her to him creates a rebuttable presumption of a trust ( Lapayowker v. Lincoln College Preparatory School, 386 Pa. 167, 125 A. 2d 451 (1956)); second, in DeBernard v. DeBernard, supra, pp. 196-197, although the Court held that the wife created no tenancy by the entireties because her husband's fraud vitiated the transfer, it reiterated the rule that where a husband obtains his wife's property without adequate consideration the law creates a rebuttable presumption that a trust is created in her favor. Thus, whether the transfer was from wife to husband solely, or from wife to husband and wife as tenants by the entireties, the same legal result obtains. The husband also contends that the evidence and the case law do not support the chancellor's finding of a diversion of entireties' income by the husband. He argues that the chancellor's view that the wife is entitled to one-half the income from the entireties' property for her own individual use is erroneous and that she is entitled only to have the income from the entireties' property applied to her benefit as well as the husband's, citing Reifschneider v. Reifschneider, 413 Pa. 342, 196 A. 2d 324 (1964). This argument is presently inapplicable since the chancellor, on adequate evidence, found that the wife is the exclusive owner of the property. The record supports the chancellor's finding that it was the wife who provided the consideration for the purchase of the property, that she continued to claim individual ownership of it after it was transferred to a tenancy by the entireties, and that the husband, in securing a mortgage, executed an affidavit acknowledging that he was the husband of the owner. The husband thereafter deprived the wife of any part of the rental income of the premises for her own individual use and enjoyment and failed to account for such rentals. Moreover, the husband failed to overcome the presumption that a trust was created in the wife's favor. We concur with the chancellor's decree that the wife is the exclusive owner of this property and is entitled to a reconveyance of it; the evidence points unerringly to this conclusion.