In an action for the partition of real property owned by an ex-wife, her ex-husband and his parents, the Court granted the defendants’ motion to confirm the report of the Referee that recommended that the ex-husband’s parents (“the in-laws”) receive the first $1,078,710.20 from the sale of the property. Such represented the parent’s direct monetary contributions to the acquisition and construction and improvement of a house on the subject property. The balance of any proceeds are to be paid to all four parties in equal 25% shares.

Such was held by Richmond County Supreme Court Justice Wayne M. Ozzi in the November 13, 2025, decision in Mersimovski v. Mersimovski, 2025 N.Y.L.J. LEXIS 3502.

Two years earlier, Justice Ozzi had awarded the ex-wife summary judgment declaring that she was is seized and entitled in fee to an undivided one-quarter 25% interest in the premises. Mersimovski v. Mersimovski, 2023 N.Y..Misc. LEXIS 23846 (November 28, 2023).Continue Reading In-laws Win Credits on Partition-Action Sale of Shared Home

Under their 2013 mediated divorce settlement agreement, these ex-spouses agreed to continue to jointly own and operate their distribution business. The agreement reported that their “solid working relationship with a high level of trust in one another’s skills” made “co-ownership a viable solution.” The ex-husband was to receive 30% of the joint business’s profit going forward, and the ex-wife would retain the remaining 70%.

Five years later, the ex-wife commenced this action alleging that after the divorce, the ex-husband began distributing rival products, poached a number of associates from the joint business, ceased recruiting new associates for the joint business, and assisted his new fiancée in establishing her own competing business — all to the detriment of the parties’ joint business. Based on these allegations, the ex-wife claimed that the joint business was no longer viable. She sought, in effect, to terminate the business and obtain such other relief to which she may be entitled.Continue Reading Continuing a Jointly-Owned Business after a Divorce