Thurber v. Thurber
Annotate this CasePlaintiff appealed the denial of her motion to enforce a provision in the parties’ final divorce order that gave her the option to purchase jointly owned real property from defendant. The property at issue was a five-acre parcel of land with buildings on the Connecticut River where the parties lived and operated a marina business during their marriage. In the final divorce order, the court gave each party the option to buy out the other’s share of the property. If plaintiff chose not to exercise the purchase option and defendant wished to do so instead, he had to notify plaintiff and send her a check. If neither party wished to purchase the property and business, it was to be sold through a realtor and the proceeds would be split between the parties. In January 2022, plaintiff moved to enforce her option to purchase the marina property. Plaintiff asserted that an April 2020 court order had given her thirty days to notify defendant of her intent to purchase. She argued that the order was stayed by her motion to alter or amend the judgment and subsequent notice of further proceedings, and did not become final until the trial court issued a November 2021 decision. According to plaintiff, she had thirty days from that date to exercise the option and did so by sending a letter with a $25,000 check to defendant on November 30, 2021. Defendant opposed plaintiff’s motion and filed his own motion to enforce the sale of the property to him. Defendant asserted that after plaintiff indicated in her motion to alter or amend that she did not want to purchase the property, he had notified her of his intent to purchase it on June 1, 2020, and mailed her a $25,000 check. At that time, plaintiff responded by offering to sell the property for a much higher price but did not express any interest in purchasing it herself. After the court issued its decision on remand, defendant sent plaintiff a check for the remaining $217,500 along with a quitclaim deed for her to complete. Defendant argued that plaintiff’s first appeal did not stay or alter the deadlines for exercising the purchase option, which expired in June 2020. The family division of the superior court concluded that plaintiff’s purchase option had expired and that defendant effectively exercised his option to purchase the property instead. Finding no reversible error in that judgment, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed.
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