Stepchildren vs. Stepmother: A Cautionary Tale of Property Rights and Deed Language
This week we wanted to bring to your attention an interesting decision out of the 2nd Department which held, in part, that a decedent’s children could not successfully claim an interest in their father’s property where the father had, prior to his death, executed and recorded a deed adding his current wife (the children’s stepmother) to Title with the designation - as “His Wife.”
In affirming the lower Court’s ruling, the Appellate Division reaffirmed that the designation in the Deed as “His Wife” created a documented Tenancy by the Entirety and therefore, the children’s allegations that (1) the father “intended” only to create a Tenancy in Common had no merit and (2) that the stepmother destroyed a Will evidencing the father’s intention to give the children an interest in the property had no relevance given that the father’s interest in the property transferred to his wife immediately upon the his death by operation of law.
The relevant facts of, as well as a link to, the case are set forth below.
In 2016, a husband conveyed property to himself and “his wife”, thereby creating a tenancy by the entirety. After the husband died intestate in 2020, his adult children, his wife’s stepchildren, sought to obtain a judgment that they shared ownership equally with their stepmother. They alleged that their father had intended them and the Defendant to hold title to the property equally on his death, and that he may have prepared a Will to that effect. The Supreme Court, Nassau County, dismissed the complaint for the failure to state a cause of action. The Appellate Division, Second Department, affirmed the lower court’s ruling. According to the Appellate Division,
“…upon the decedent’s death, ownership of the entirety of the subject property automatically passed to [the surviving spouse] by operation of law, irrespective of whether the decedent had desired for the plaintiffs to have an ownership interest or had prepared a will
to that effect [citations omitted].”
The Appellate Division remitted the case to the Supreme Court for entry of a judgment declaring that the plaintiff did not have an ownership interest in the property. Ciaccio v. Wright-Ciaccio, 2022 NY Slip Op 07215, decided December 21, 2023, is posted at nycourts.gov
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