Opinion ID: 1859681
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Houseboat

Text: In his order, the chancellor determined that the houseboat was marital property subject to a one-half division in the divorce. On appeal, Verlon argues that there was no evidence introduced at the divorce hearing which indicated that the money used for the houseboat came from the joint account, or that the inheritance he received from his mother, totaling $35,809.11, was ever commingled with the joint account to which Debra could attach any interest. Verlon argues that the funds are traceable to the inheritance money, and that he used cashier's checks, instead of checks from the account, to pay for the houseboat. While it would appear that the ownership of the houseboat would fall under the second exception to marital property listed in Ark.Code Ann. § 9-12-315(b), Verlon misses the point in that the chancellor found that the houseboat is marital property because it is in joint names although derived from benefits from inheritance. The Court finds a gift was made.  (Emphasis added.) The chancellor specifically found at the close of the hearing that the bill of sale, which was the only written evidence of the ownership of the houseboat, indicated that it was jointly owned by the parties, despite Verlon's testimony that he later transferred title into his name only. Verlon did not produce any documentation of a change in the title of the boat. In other words, the chancellor found that while the property could be traced to an inheritance, Verlon made a gift to Debra of an interest in the property. The chancellor thereby found that Verlon did not rebut the presumption that once the property was placed in both his and Debra's names, the property was then held as tenants by the entirety. See Ramsey, supra , and Lofton, supra . We discussed the situation of the purchase of property by one spouse with inheritance funds which have been processed through a joint account in Jackson v. Jackson, 298 Ark. 60, 765 S.W.2d 561 (1989). In Jackson , the wife used inherited funds to purchase her sister's one-half interest in real property to which the wife owned the other one-half interest in her name alone. When the wife received the inheritance, she deposited the money in a joint bank account which she held with her husband, and then several days later wrote a check out of that account to her sister for the property. The real property was titled in the wife's name only. Upon finding that the real property was not marital property, the court found that the wife merely poured the inheritance in and out of the joint account and then, significantly, only titled the property in her name upon purchase. We upheld the chancellor's finding that the husband never exercised any dominion or control over the funds in the joint account, and that the wife never intended to make a gift of an interest in the property to her husband. Applying the appropriate principles to the instant case, we cannot say that the trial court clearly erred in finding that the houseboat was marital property. While the chancellor's determinations on the houseboat and the joint checking account may appear inconsistent, they, in fact, underscore the fine factual distinctions that often characterize marital-property divisions.