Opinion ID: 2402348
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: 34 Sage Drive

Text: Approximately eight and a half months before the marriage, Lance purchased real estate at 34 Sage Drive in Cranston. The deed conveyed the property to both parties as joint tenants. Rosemarie argues that because she and Lance owned 34 Sage Drive as joint tenants before their marriage, her interest in it was a premarital gift from Lance and not part of the marital estate. Although Lance acknowledges that he purchased the property in both names as joint tenants, he contends that the property is a joint marital asset subject to equitable distribution, or, alternatively, that its character changed into a marital asset by virtue of home improvements undertaken during the marriage. Although we have not had occasion to address the precise question presented here, viz., whether the undivided one-half interest of each joint tenant created before the marriage of such joint tenants should be excluded from the marital estate, this Court has addressed the property interest of joint tenancy more generally. The Rhode Island General Assembly has not defined a joint tenancy in real property statutorily; the property interest exists, instead, under common law. A joint tenant of real property holds an undivided one-half interest in the property. See Lucchetti v. Lucchetti, 85 R.I. 105, 111, 127 A.2d 244, 248 (1956). To create an estate in joint tenancy, the four unities of interest, title, time, and possession are essential, which means that, joint tenants are required to have equal interests, acquired by the same conveyance, commenced at the same time and held by the same undivided possession. Knibb v. Security Insurance Company of New Haven, 121 R.I. 406, 410, 399 A.2d 1214, 1216 (1979). [E]ach tenant stands in exactly the same position as all the others. Id. at 410n.3, 399 A.2d at 1216n.3. We are satisfied that a premarital joint tenancy in real estate, particularly when, as here, the property was purchased shortly before the marriage, is not encompassed within the statutory exception of an interest in property held in the name of one of the parties    prior to the marriage. Section 15-5-16.1(b). Rather, we conclude that the general magistrate's inclusion of 34 Sage Drive as part of the marital estate was a sustainable exercise of his discretion to classify and assign marital assets. The record contains sufficient evidence to support his finding. Both parties made improvements to the real estate during the marriage, and it served as their marital home in Rhode Island. Although we affirm the general magistrate's finding that 34 Sage Drive was a marital asset, we recognize that he is not constrained from ordering a different assignment on remand after the revaluation of assets.