Destruction of marital property

[snopes]

Comment: The story:

A man owning a heavy construction company is served with divorce papers
from his wife. He goes to the county clerk and gets a demolition permit
for his house. Goes home, and starts to destroy his house with a
bulldozer. Of course she calls the police who come and inspect the
demolition permit, and allow him to continue. By the time she can get a
judge to grant an emergency injunction, he has parked the bulldozer on the
rubble that used to be the house.

This seems like an urban legend that I can't find in your archive, but...
it was always told as being a Mr. Thun of Pierce County Washington. He
also used his heavy equipment to build a small airport called Thun Field.
Thun field then was renamed Pierce County Airport when deeded over to the
county. His son was reportedly the manager of the airport.

[BringTheNoise]

Even assuming this is true, what does the guy gain by doing this?

[Christie]

Revenge. It wouldn't surprise me if there was some grain of truth to the story - or to be more accurate, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that there have been marriage breakdowns where one partner has violently destroyed property of some kind. Perhaps not in so spectular a fashion but I'm sure it does happen. If people can go to the extreme of killing their own child to get revenge on a spouse I don't see someone hesitating at knocking down, or burning down, a house.

[Mycroft]

It happened here over 200 years ago. Amazingly the church is still in use now, although there is nothing left of the village itself except for a couple of nearby farms

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

It happened here over 200 years ago. Amazingly the church is still in use now, although there is nothing left of the village itself except for a couple of nearby farms

Yeah, but that's not quite the same thing since a. they didn't even have bulldozers back then ( ) and b. that wasn't about an ex levelling something out of spite but about a wife wanting to live somewhere and a husband apparently not being satisfied with "no" and going so far as to destroy the home so she couldn't... sneak back there or something.

There are a couple points to the modern story I am curious about. I am no lawyer and this would probably vary from state to state, but I wonder if a judge wouldn't say "oh hey, this house was valued at $250k and now the land is worth $50k so your share of everything we divvy up will be $200k less because you chose to devalue your marital property" to this kind of thing. Also, there is no scenario I can think of where the husband doesn't come out looking like a class A jerkwad, the kind of man a village would run out of town on a rail when villages did that sort of thing.

[hambubba]

It's a similar scenario to the "buy this vette/mercedes/BMW for $100" story. Split the proceeds of the sale and you get nothing.

I've heard this particular story before, I was sure it was on snopes...

[Troberg]

Stories like these happen. Two brothers in a nearby town couldn't agree on how to divide the house they've inherited, so one of them took a chain saw and cut it in half.

The interesting bit here is that the guy owned a construction company. Unless it was an exceptional house, chances are that the bulldozer alone was worth as much as the house, and the company certainly has more than a bulldozer. The only thing he is likely to have achieved in the end is that he might have bankrupted his company as well.

[jimmy101_again]

I would think there would be some legal ramifications. I know my home is in both my and my SO names. I can't sell it, or demolish it, without her consent. I would think I would be thrown in jail for running a dozer across the house since that would consitute destruction of someone elses property.

[Not_Done_Living]

Ibn my town, a demo permit can take up to 60 days to receive. The Town does a deed/lien search, the Building department does a survey, then the utilities have to come and disconnect the services, and that's something that has to be done by appointment.

Then on demo day, you have to arrange for the town to have an inspector in place.

And that's only if they determine that the house isn't a heritage home (and in Markham, damn near everything older than 20 years old is considered a Heritage home and thus "protected".)

[Lainie]

I doubt a demo permit would be issued for one party to a marriage to destroy marital property.

[Jay Temple]

I thought marital property worked exactly the opposite way: The guy was in the clear because either party can dispose of it as they see fit. Otherwise, checks out of our joint account would require both signatures.

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by Jay Temple

I thought marital property worked exactly the opposite way: The guy was in the clear because either party can dispose of it as they see fit. Otherwise, checks out of our joint account would require both signatures.

The rules surrounding your joint account require one or the other of you to sign. Real estate does not work that way. Both parties have to sign paperwork to sell or purchase a house, so why would one person be allowed to destroy it?

[lord_feldon]

Originally Posted by Christie

Revenge. It wouldn't surprise me if there was some grain of truth to the story - or to be more accurate, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that there have been marriage breakdowns where one partner has violently destroyed property of some kind.

It wouldn't surprise me, either. A guy in Southwest Ohio recently demolished his house rather than let it be sold to pay his various debts.

[Katness]

Thun Field definitely exists.. I live about a mile from it. (If you zoom out on this link, you'll see a big horseshoe shaped housing development to the right.. that's where I am.)

However, according to this link on historylink.org, nothing even remotely resembling the OP ever occurred.

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by Lainie

The rules surrounding your joint account require one or the other of you to sign. Real estate does not work that way. Both parties have to sign paperwork to sell or purchase a house, so why would one person be allowed to destroy it?

In fact, when I purchased my townhouse -- in WA state, where the OP story allegedly occurred -- the paperwork for the sale was complicated by the fact that my divorce was not yet final. Even though my ex had in no way participated in the buying process, and was not a party to the sale, the bank required extra steps on my part to assure that he would not have any interest in the property.

WA is a community property state.