Background
Kevin and April Hibdon married in late 2019 and separated approximately four years later in late 2023. April had purchased the marital residence in 2017 — two years before the marriage — for $118,000, with title and the mortgage remaining solely in her name throughout. At the time of the marriage, the outstanding mortgage principal was approximately $112,000. During the marriage, mortgage payments were made from marital funds (income earned by the parties), reducing the balance to roughly $91,000 by August 2024. Kevin also contributed approximately $11,389 of his nonmarital funds in early 2020 to cure a foreclosure on the property, an amount the family court ordered April to reimburse.
The Bullitt Family Court issued a divorce decree in January 2025 classifying the residence as entirely April’s nonmarital property, awarding Kevin nothing in home equity beyond the foreclosure-prevention reimbursement. The court also awarded all five pets — at least two of which were acquired during the marriage — to April, citing her sole possession and caregiving since separation. Kevin moved to alter, amend, or vacate under CR 59.05, challenging both the property and pet rulings, and upon denial filed a timely appeal. He additionally sought reimbursement for personal property items he alleged April had transferred to a third party rather than returning to him.
The Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. The panel (Judges Acree, Caldwell, and Cetrulo, with Judge Caldwell authoring) declined to address the personal property reimbursement claim as unpreserved, affirmed the award of pets to April, and reversed the family court’s disposition of the marital residence.
The Court’s Holding
The court held that the family court committed reversible legal error in two respects regarding the marital residence. First, it improperly placed a heightened burden on Kevin to prove that any increase in the home’s value was marital, reasoning that Kevin had greater experience in property acquisition than April. The appellate court found this directly contravened KRS 403.190(3), which creates a statutory presumption that property — including appreciation — acquired during the marriage is marital, and established precedent holding that the party asserting nonmarital status bears the burden of proof, not the spouse asserting a marital interest. Second, the family court failed entirely to delineate the marital and nonmarital components of the residence, instead treating it as wholly nonmarital. Because mortgage payments made from marital income during the marriage indisputably reduced the principal balance by roughly $20,000, marital equity plainly existed and had to be identified and equitably divided. Record title in one spouse’s name is legally irrelevant to the classification.
On the pets, the court found no reversible error. The family court’s factual findings — that April was the sole caregiver since separation, that two animals were a bonded pair, and that one was effectively a gift to April’s nephew in her custody — were supported by substantial evidence. Neither party cited controlling Kentucky authority requiring shared ownership of or access to pets following divorce, and no monetary value for the pets was placed in evidence. The court therefore affirmed that ruling as within the family court’s discretion. On the personal property reimbursement for items allegedly given away to a third party, the court declined review entirely: the issue was not raised in Kevin’s CR 59.05 motion, no record citation demonstrated preservation, and Kevin’s brief did not request palpable error review under CR 61.02.
The case was remanded for the family court to apply the source-of-funds rule — and, where appropriate, the Brandenburg percentage formula — to properly apportion marital and nonmarital equity in the residence and equitably divide the marital share between the parties.
Key Takeaways
- Under KRS 403.190(3), property and appreciation acquired during a marriage are presumed marital; the spouse claiming nonmarital status carries the burden of rebuttal — a family court cannot flip that burden based on one party’s greater sophistication in real estate.
- A home purchased before marriage does not remain entirely nonmarital if mortgage principal is reduced using marital income during the marriage; Kentucky’s source-of-funds rule requires courts to apportion marital and nonmarital equity and divide the marital share, even when title remains solely in one spouse’s name.
- Record title — a deed or mortgage in only one spouse’s name — has no bearing on whether property is classified as marital or nonmarital under Kentucky law.
- Appellate issues not raised in a CR 59.05 post-judgment motion and unsupported by specific record citations will be deemed unpreserved and ignored absent a request for palpable error review.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces Kentucky’s well-settled source-of-funds framework for mixed marital/nonmarital real property and corrects a recurring family-court error: treating a pre-marital home as entirely nonmarital simply because one spouse holds sole title. Practitioners advising clients who own pre-marital real estate should document pre-marital principal balances, the source of every post-marriage mortgage payment, and any nonmarital funds contributed during the marriage — because each of those data points will drive the apportionment calculation on remand and in future cases.
The opinion also carries a quiet but significant reminder for divorce litigants: even a spouse who concedes (as April’s counsel apparently did at closing argument) that some marital equity exists cannot rely on that concession to bind the other side on appeal if the family court nonetheless misapplies the burden of proof. Courts must follow the statutory presumption and the source-of-funds rule regardless of what the parties say at trial, and an appellate court reviewing property classification applies the least-deferential de novo standard — meaning legal errors in this area are fully correctable on appeal.