Opinion
No. 1-850 / 01-0438.
Filed February 6, 2002.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Sioux County, JAMES D. SCOTT, Judge.
Appellant David M. Vander Wel challenges the equity of a property division made by the trial court in dissolving a twenty-five year marriage. AFFIRMED.
James E. Brick, Des Moines, for appellant.
Andrea Van Beek, Orange City, for appellee.
Considered by SACKETT, C.J., and MAHAN and HECHT, JJ.
This is a challenge to the equity of a property division made by the trial court in dissolving a twenty-five year marriage. Appellant David M. Vander Wel contends the court did not give him sufficient credit in dividing the parties' assets for property gifted to him by his parents and for property he inherited from his father. Appellee Paulette D. Wander Wel contends the division was equitable. We affirm.
David, who was born in 1944, and Paulette, born in 1946, were married in 1966. They have two sons. The oldest is twenty-five. The younger child was twenty-one and a student at Iowa State University at the time of trial. The question of his parents paying a portion of his college expenses was not an issue at trial.
David and Paulette, both graduates of Westmar College, moved to Sioux County after their marriage where David was in the farm implement business with his father until 1979 at which time he began managing family real estate and engaged in his own business interest and in helping his mother. His testimony as to his earnings from 1979 on is confusing. He does not claim to be currently employed for wages. The record is also confusing as to the assets David allegedly accumulated during the marriage and those that came from his parents. David's father is deceased. It also is not clear what property remains in his mother's name and what obligations, if any, the couple owes to her.
Paulette taught school for the first five years of the marriage. She was a homemaker for the next ten years and then worked at the local hospital for three years before holding a ten-year position as an administrative assistant at the local college. Five years of federal and state income tax returns are a part of the record. The state income tax returns show that Paulette had income before taxes of $24,395 in 1995, $24,616 in 1996, $26,266 in 1997, $28,512 in 1998, and $25,360 in 1999. During the same period the state income tax returns show David had income before taxes of $7,010, $18,411, $27,485, $20,908, and $9,636. Paulette's income has come from wages and rents while David's income comes primarily from rents and dividends.
In 2000 Paulette moved to Florida to live with her older son. There she attended computer training classes and is now working at a university as a senior statistician at an annual salary of $25,000. A part of her pay package is a retirement account and health and dental insurance. During her training she incurred a $7,400 student loan that had not been repaid at the time of the dissolution. David continues to live in Orange City, Iowa, in the home the parties occupied at the time of their separation.
The parties agreed to the division of certain assets. They asked the district court to divide other assets and Paulette requested rehabilitative alimony of $400 a month for five years. The district court divided the assets in question. It determined David's inherited and gifted property totaled $659,000. The district court then allocated what it determined were $607,299 in assets to David and what it determined were $386,994 in assets to Paulette. David challenges this division contending he did not receive sufficient credit for a farm received from his family, from money he inherited and for the proceeds of his father's life insurance policy.
The distribution of the property of the parties should be that which is equitable under the circumstances after consideration of the criteria codified in Iowa Code section 598.21(1). In re Marriage of Robison, 542 N.W.2d 4, 6 (Iowa Ct. App. 1995); In re Marriage of Estlund, 344 N.W.2d 276, 280 (Iowa Ct. App. 1983). Iowa Code section 598.21(2) provides, in part, gifts received by either party prior to or during the course of the marriage are not subject to property division unless the refusal to divide the property is inequitable to the other party or the children. In re Marriage of Fall, 593 N.W.2d 164, 166 (Iowa Ct. App. 1999). Section 598.21(2) is substantially a codification of the premise established by earlier case law that property inherited by or gifted to one marriage partner is not subject to division unless the failure to do so would be unjust. See In re Marriage of Thomas, 319 N.W.2d 209, 211 (Iowa 1982); In re Marriage of Byall, 353 N.W.2d 103, 105-06 (Iowa Ct. App. 1984). In Thomas, the supreme court delineated a number of factors which might bear on a claim inherited or gifted property should be divided. These include:
(1) contributions of the parties toward the property, its care, preservation or improvement;
(2) the existence of any independent close relationship between the donor or testator and the spouse of the one to whom the property was given or devised;
(3) separate contributions by the parties to their economic welfare to whatever extent those contributions preserve the property for either of them;
(4) any special needs of either party;
(5) any other matter which would render it plainly unfair to a spouse or child to have the property set aside for the exclusive enjoyment of the donee or devisee.Thomas, 319 N.W.2d at 211.
David challenges the decision of the court to grant Paulette a farm once owned by his parents that was valued at $300,000. He points out Paulette had not asked for the farm. Paulette did say the farm should go to their children. She specifically asked that David be given a life estate in the land and that the remainder interest go to their children. David's parents owned the farm in 1978. David's mother owned forty acres of the tract and David's father owned eighty. Apparently with estate planning advice the land was transferred to David and Paulette. In exchange for the land David and Paulette were required to make annuity payments to David's parents for their respective lifetimes. They were required to pay David's father $17,424.55 a year and David's mother $7,200 a year. At the time of the transfer the parties valued the farm at $216,000. David and Paulette have received the rent from the real estate since the property was transferred. There was a suggestion by the district court that David's mother forgave the indebtedness. However, the district court ordered David to repay any annuity payments owed his mother on the farm.
David contends this property should have been set-aside to him because it came from his parents. We disagree that when the property was transferred it was a gift or an inheritance. The transaction was more akin to a sale. The property was transferred in exchange for a promise to pay an annuity. Paulette as well as David obligated themselves in writing to pay the annuities. The district court found it impossible to determine whether the annuities had been paid. We also are not able to make this determination. David's mother did testify that the annuity was paid during David's father's lifetime. There is no other evidence showing the obligation to pay the annuities has been satisfied in writing or otherwise. David's father is now deceased, but his purported will, which was never probated, left his entire estate to his wife, David's mother, if she survived. Not only can we not determine that the annuities have been satisfied, we cannot determine from this record the amount of any potential liability for annuity payments to David's mother. The annuity according to the contract did not remain a charge on the land. If the annuity was forgiven, it was a gift to both David and Paulette as they both were obligated to pay it. We affirm the district court. David was given adequate consideration for inherited property in the district court's decision. We award no appellate attorney fees. Costs on appeal are taxed to David.
AFFIRMED.