Court Opinion

ID: 9709639
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:52:33.363321+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:50.635688
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE STENGEL, specially concurring: I agree that the trial court’s distribution of property was correct and should be affirmed, but I would not say that the residence was “transmuted” into marital property. The Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act certainly makes no provision for a transmutation theory, and I would not adopt a legal fiction so long as equity and justice can be achieved by other means. (SeeIn re Marriage of Preston (1980), 81 Ill. App. 3d 672, 402 N.E.2d 332.) The same result can be reached by apportioning the marital property so as to allow credit for the contribution of each party to the improvement of the nonmarital property. Section 503(c) of the Act expressly authorizes such an allowance. (See also Justice Alloy’s specially concurring opinion in in re Marriage of Crouch (1980), 88 Ill. App. 3d 426, 410 N.E.2d 580.) This view is consistent with In re Marriage of Key (1979), 71 Ill. App. 3d 722, 389 N.E.2d 963, where the court stated: “We conclude that where, as here, identifiable, nonmarital assets, whether in the form of cash or tangible property, have been exchanged by jointly held property, the parties, upon dissolution of marriage are entitled to a refund of their original contribution * • (71 Ill. App. 3d 722, 723, 389 N.E.2d 963, 964.) In other words, here the wife was entitled to a refund of her contribution to the improvement of the residence even though the house itself remained the nonmarital property of the husband. For the reasons stated, therefore, I concur in the determination of the majority in this cause.