Court Opinion

ID: 9655470
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:11:26.525615+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:18.780341
License: Public Domain

GARTZKE, P.J.
I dissent. The trial court ordered the husband to pay child support in the guise of mortgage payments and payments for property taxes and insurance. The order circumvents the wife’s assignment to the state of her right to support. That assignment was made to reimburse the state for its payments of AFDC to her. The effect of the trial court’s order is to continue the wife’s AFDC, to order the husband to pay support, and to give the state nothing.
The state cannot be fully reimbursed under the trial court’s order. The state cannot reach the husband’s one-half interest in the home, for he does not receive AFDC. But because he has the one-half interest, he will retain the benefit of one-half of every payment of principal he makes on the mortgage, and he is entitled to a tax deduction for all the mortgage interest and the property taxes he pays. These deductions may be of considerable benefit to him when he returns to work. The state has recourse for its AFDC payments only against the wife’s one-half interest in the home, and then only after the home is sold or on her death. While the amount of the parties’ equity in the home does not appear in the record on appeal, the AFDC payments probably will quickly exceed her one-half interest in the equity.
I would hold the trial court abused its discretion by enabling the parties to circumvent the rights of the state to the financial advantage of the husband.