FRED HUTTIG, APPELLANT,
v.
HOPE HUTTIG, APPELLEE
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In this marital property division case, the Florida District Court of Appeal reversed the trial court's allocation of the marital home, finding that the husband was improperly denied his right to participate in future appreciation and denied the use of his equity for an extended period. The court held that equal division of the home as tenants in common with a delayed sale was appropriate where both spouses had comparable net worth and earnings.
The trial court abused its discretion in awarding the wife sixty percent of the home's equity and freezing the husband's interest at a fixed amount. The marital home should be held by the parties as tenants in common, with the wife having exclusive use and occupancy until the youngest child reaches majority, after which the home is to be sold with the parties dividing the proceeds equally.
[1] A trial court abuses its discretion by awarding a disproportionate share of marital assets when the parties have equal net worth and earnings and no special equities exis…
[2] A trial court abuses its discretion by requiring one spouse to transfer their interest in the marital home to the other in exchange for a non-interest-bearing note payabl…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“the trial court abused its discretion in requiring the appellant-husband to deed his interest in the marital home to the wife in exchange for "a non-interest bearing Note and Mortgage ... in the amount of $40,000.00 which shall be due and payable upon the earlier to occur of the sale of the Property, the Wife remarrying or permanently vacating the Property."”
Establishes the core holding that the trial court's property division was an abuse of discretion
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceFred and Hope Huttig were married for eleven years and had two children. The marital home was the parties' only significant asset, with an equity of a…
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PER CURIAM.
Where, as here, the only significant marital asset of the parties was the marital home which, under a view of the evidence most favorable to the appellee, see Walter v. Walter, 464 So. 2d 538 (Fla.1985), had an equity of $100,000 at the time of the dissolution of the parties’ eleven-year marriage; the wife has a net worth and earnings equal to or greater than the husband; and, as the trial court correctly found, there are no special equities which might justify some disparity in the distribution of the marital assets, the trial court abused its discretion in requiring the appellant-husband to deed his interest in the marital home to the wife in exchange for “a non-interest bearing Note and Mortgage ... in the amount of $40,000.00 which shall be due and payable upon the earlier to occur of the sale of the Property, the Wife remarrying or permanently vacating the Property.” 1
We agree with the husband that there is no justification for awarding the wife sixty percent and the husband forty percent of the present equity of the marital home and no justification for freezing the husband’s interest in the property at a fixed amount and thereby denying him both the right to participate in the future appreciation, if any, of the property and the right to the use of the money for a projected ten years.
Accordingly, we reverse that part of the Final Judgment of Dissolution of Marriage which requires the husband to transfer his interest in the marital home to the wife and the wife to execute a note and mortgage to the husband. We direct the trial court to modify the judgment to recite that the marital home shall be held by the parties as tenants in common with the wife to have the exclusive use and occupancy of it until the children have either reached the age of eighteen, married, died, or permanently vacated the home, at which time the home is to be sold with the parties to divide the proceeds equally after allowing them appropriate credits. In all other respects, the judgment is affirmed.
Affirmed in part; reversed in part with directions to modify.
. Our concern that the wife's promissory note was largely illusory in that it need not be paid in her lifetime was alleviated when at oral argument her counsel agreed that the house must be sold when the younger of the parties’ two children reaches his majority.
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Hicks v. Hicks, 580 So. 2d 876 (Fla. 2d DCA 1991)…le of the marital home or the death of Mrs. Hicks. Therefore, Mr. Hicks has no right to participate in the home’s future appreciation and indeed may never even receive the $5,000, as Mrs. Hicks is not required to sell the home. See Huttig v. Huttig, 530 So. 2d 1051 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988). Finally, in reviewing the award of $150 per week permanent periodic alimony to Mrs. Hicks, we are unimpressed by Mr. Hicks’ argument that his former wife failed to prove need. This was a long-term marriage. Mr. Hicks was the pri…
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Leonardis v. Leonardis, 30 So. 3d 568 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010)…ment that orders the husband to pay the wife the sum of $87,500.00. Upon remand, the Final Judgment will be corrected to indicate that the wife shall receive one-half of the proceeds of the sale of the house. (Emphasis added). Cf. Huttig v. Huttig, 530 So. 2d 1051, 1052 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988) (reversing order requiring husband to transfer interest in marital home to wife because, among other things, there was “no justification for freezing the husband’s interest in the property at a fixed amount and thereby denyi…
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Goley v. Goley, 272 So. 3d 800 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019)
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- Walter v. Walter, 464 So. 2d 538 (Fla. 1985)