Opinion ID: 2225358
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: genuine issue whether margaret consented to transfer of the properties to the children

Text: As an alternative basis for summary judgment, the appellees argue that the Properties are excluded from the augmented estate because Margaret consented to their transfer. Central to the appellees' argument is § 30-2314(c)(2), which provides, in pertinent part, that property otherwise includable in the augmented estate should not be included if it was transferred by the decedent to any person other than the surviving spouse by any bill of sale, conveyance, deed, or gift or by any other means of transfer either by an instrument of transfer joined in by the surviving spouse of the decedent or with the consent to transfer manifested before or after death of the decedent by a writing signed by the surviving spouse of the decedent before, contemporaneously with, or after the transfer[.] The appellees contend that Margaret conveyed all of her interests in the Properties to Lyle when she executed the quitclaim deeds in November 1993 and that because Lyle acquired the Properties prior to his marriage to Margaret, the only interest Margaret had in the Properties was a possibility of inheritance. As a result, the appellees contend, the quitclaim deeds can only be interpreted as Margaret's consent to divest herself of any inheritance interest in the Properties. We disagree. Here, it is undisputed that Margaret executed three quit-claim deeds in favor of Lyle in November 1993. In all three quitclaim deeds, after a legal description of the property, the deed states, GRANTOR covenants with GRANTEE that GRANTOR: 1. Is lawfully seized of such real estate; 2. Has legal power and lawful authority to convey the same; 3. Warrants that Grantor will convey all interest that she possesses in said property to Grantee. The quitclaim deeds, however, do not set forth any intent by Margaret to give up her rights to dissent from Lyle's will or claim an elective share of Lyle's estate. Moreover, the record also contains evidence indicating that Margaret did not intend to do so. Margaret averred that in November 1993, Lyle presented three documents for her signature and informed me that they were for tax purposes and asked that I sign them. He did not discuss with me what they were for or why I was signing them other then [sic] to tell me that they were for tax purposes. . . . Nobody was with Lyle when I signed these documents nor did he tell me what he was planning to do subsequent to my signing. It wasn't until many years later, that I learned that these documents were actually quitclaim deeds. More important, Margaret did not sign the December 1993 deeds transferring title of the Properties to the children. And contrary to the appellees' assertion, Lyle's later transfer of the Properties to the childrennot Margaret's execution of the quitclaim deedsis the decisive transfer. Section 30-2314(c)(2) clearly sets forth that the pertinent transfer is one in which property is transferred by the decedent to any person other than the surviving spouse. There is no evidence that Margaret expressly manifested her consent by a writing signed or otherwiseto the transfer of the Properties to the children. Margaret stated that she had no knowledge of these deeds and I never consented to them in writing, I never consented to them verbally, or otherwise. In fact, Margaret said that she was unaware of the fact that Lyle executed joint tenancy warranty deeds with the children, because Lyle continued to retain all of the incidences of ownership and all of the benefits from owning the property. Furthermore, the appellees' construction of § 30-2314(c)(2) is inconsistent with the purpose of the augmented estate statutes. As mentioned above, the dual purpose of the elective share provisions is to prevent a spouse from being denied a fair share of the decedent's estate and also to prevent the surviving spouse from obtaining more than a fair share of the estate when he or she has already received a share of the estate through some other means. To achieve this purpose, the value of certain property transferred by the decedent during marriage is included in the decedent's augmented estate. [30] If, however, a spouse had agreed to the transfer, the value of the transferred property is not included in the transferring spouse's augmented estate. [31] Logically, when a spouse agrees to a transfer of property that diminishes the eventual decedent's estate, the surviving spouse should not be allowed to reclaim the value of the transferred property in the augmented estate. [32] But that principle is not implicated if a transfer did not remove the property from the decedent spouse's estate, because the consent of the surviving spouse to the transfer was not a consent to any corresponding diminution in the estate. [33] And the transfer that is at issue here is the one that actually removed the Properties from Lyle's possession. The appellees' argument seems to be that the quitclaim deeds should be read as evidence that Margaret consented to the later transfers as well. That interpretation is strained, given the evidence, and is certainly insufficient to establish consent in writing to the later transfers as a matter of law, given the paucity of evidence that Margaret was even informed of the later transfers. The evidence establishes, at the very least, a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether Margaret's execution of the quitclaim deeds to Lyle should be interpreted as her written consent to the later transfer of the Properties to the children. Therefore, we find no merit to the appellees' argument that the court's summary judgment can be affirmed based on that reasoning.