Court Opinion

ID: 9578750
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:48:02.8131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:32.674739
License: Public Domain

*696STROUD, Judge
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the majority and further agree that the trial court’s award of “Lot 1 Whispering Woods” (Lot 1) to plaintiff for the purpose of compensating her for a $35,000 separate investment into the marital home is unsupported by the findings of fact contained in the court’s distributional order. This conclusion of law is reviewable de novo. Shear v. Stevens Bldg Co., 107 N.C. App. 154, 160, 418 S.E.2d 841, 845 (1992). I write separately to clarify the rationale for my decision.
The trial court’s distributional order contained the following relevant findings: (1) An equal distribution of martial property is equitable; (2) Lot 1 is marital property valued at $35,000; (3) The marital home in Macclesfield is marital property; (4) The marital home in Macclesfield is owned by the parties as tenants by the entirety; (5) Plaintiff invested $20,000 of her separate property to purchase the marital home; and (6) Plaintiff used a $15,000 gift from her mother to improve the marital home. The trial court did not expressly classify the $15,000 gift from plaintiff’s mother as either the marital property or separate property of plaintiff. Coincidentally, the total of the sums invested by plaintiff into the marital home was $35,000, and the value of Lot 1 was also $35,000. Based upon these findings, the trial court awarded Lot 1 to plaintiff for the “purpose” of compensating her for her “separate investment.” I concur with the majority that these findings are insufficient to support the award.
“[A] presumption of a gift of separate property to the marital estate arises” when “a spouse uses separate funds to furnish consideration for property conveyed to the marital estate, as demonstrated by titling property as a tenancy by the entirety.” McLean v. McLean, 323 N.C. 543, 546, 374 S.E.2d 376, 378 (1988). The contributing spouse may. rebut this presumption by presenting clear, cogent, and convincing evidence that the investment was intended to remain separate property. McLean, 323 N.C. at 552, 374 S.E.2d at 382. Additionally, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 50-20(b)(2) provides that “property acquired by gift from the other spouse during the course of the marriage shall be considered separate property” as a matter of law “if such an intention is stated in the conveyance.”
Here, the parties’ marital home is titled as a tenancy by the entirety. Therefore, plaintiff’s entire $35,000 investment in the home is presumed to be a gift to the marital estate. This is true notwithstanding the trial court’s failure to clearly classify plaintiff’s in*697vestment of the $15,000 gift from her mother. Because the trial court made no findings to rebut the presumption that either plaintiffs $20,000 investment or $15,000 investment was a gift to the marital estate, this property is presumed to be marital property for purposes of distribution. For this reason, the trial court’s findings of fact are insufficient to support its conclusion that plaintiff is entitled to reimbursement for an investment of separate funds into the marital home.
Alternatively, a spouse’s separate investment in the marital home may be considered by the trial court as a distributional factor to support an unequal distribution of the marital estate. Collins v. Collins, 125 N.C. App. 113, 116, 479 S.E.2d 240, 242, disc. rev. denied, 346 N.C. 277, 487 S.E.2d 542 (1997); N.C. Gen. Stat. § 50-20(c)(12) (2005). The practical effect of awarding Lot 1 to plaintiff outside the division of the other marital property is an unequal distribution of the marital estate.1 However, the trial court expressly found that an equal distribution of the marital estate is equitable and did not find the existence of any distributional factor pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 50-20(c). For this reason, the trial court’s findings of fact are insufficient to support an unequal distribution of the marital estate.
On remand, the trial court must make additional findings of fact and conclusions of law to effect an equitable distribution, equal or unequal, of the marital property of the parties.2 If the trial court determines that an unequal distribution is equitable, the court must make the appropriate findings as to any distributional factors for which evidence was presented, pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 50-20(c).
For the reasons stated above, I concur.

. Mathematically, the trial court’s findings of fact established that plaintiff should pay defendant a distributive award of $6,475.00. Instead, the court ordered defendant to pay to plaintiff a distributive award of $11,025.00.

. I also note that findings of fact numbers eight and nine in the trial court’s distributional order are simply recitations of plaintiff’s testimony. “[V]erbatim recitations of the testimony of each witness do not constitute findings of fact by the trial judge, because they do not reflect a conscious choice between the conflicting versions of the incident in question which emerged from all the evidence presented.” In re Green, 67 N.C. App. 501, 505, n.1, 313 S.E.2d 193, 195, n.1, (1984). Although findings numbers eight and nine are not legally sufficient, the content contained therein is restated in finding of fact number twenty-five, which is a legally sufficient finding pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1A-1, Rule 52(a). For this reason, this Court may review findings of fact eight and nine on appeal. See Davis v. Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, 178 N.C. App. 605, -, 632 S.E.2d 576, 580 (2006).