HOPPER VS. HOPPER (DIVORCE PROPERTY & ALIMONY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

Thompson, J. Following Lombardi v. Lombardi, 44 Nev. 314, 195 P. 93 (1921), the court held that where one spouse expends separate funds to improve the other spouse's separate real property, absent an agreement to the contrary the title to the improvements follows the land, and the paying spouse's contribution may be treated as a gift. The trial court did not err in denying the wife reimbursement for a swimming pool built with her separate funds on the husband's separate-property home, where the evidence was compatible with a gift and no agreement to treat the advance as a loan was shown. The court distinguished Kraemer v. Kraemer, 76 Nev. 265, 352 P.2d 253 (1960), where a specific agreement to treat the advances as loans had been found. Affirmed.

In plain language

During the marriage, the wife used about $3,000 of her own separate money to pay for a swimming pool built at the husband's separate-property home. When the couple divorced, the wife asked to be reimbursed for the cost of the pool. The trial court declined, reasoning that the law presumes such a payment was a gift to the husband, and that the presumption had not been overcome. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. Under earlier Nevada law, when one spouse spends separate funds to improve the other spouse's separate property, and there is no agreement to the contrary, the title to the improvement follows the land - here, the pool became part of the husband's property. The trial court was free to find a gift because the evidence fit that idea, and there was no proof of an agreement to treat the wife's money as a loan.