Court Opinion

ID: 9679352
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:50:11.593307+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:12.735730
License: Public Domain

SIMONETT, Justice
(concurring specially)-
As part of her property award, the wife receives $300,863.50 in cash, $200,000 of which represents her half equity share in the homestead, for which the husband has mortgaged the homestead to pay her share. The wife apparently intends to purchase a $160,000 house with a downpayment of $100,000. The real estate she receives, which has a negative cash flow, offers a substantial tax shelter. The property distribution and its income and tax consequences are complex and varied. Suffice it to say here that I join in affirmance of the property awards. Interestingly, the trial court says it “took cognizance” of the manner in which the husband attempted to put marital property out of the wife’s reach in arriving at its property distribution.
I mention the property award because it has a bearing on spousal maintenance. My concern is not with the permanency of the maintenance — as I think that might be justified in this case, unlike in McClelland (also decided today) — but whether, in view of the property settlement, the maintenance is too much. But I concur with the majority opinion on the assumption that the trial court, on remand, will “retain continuing jurisdiction to revise, if necessary, the amount and duration of the maintenance.”