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Appeals panel hears dispute over 19-year delay in selling former marital home
Summary
The father appealed a probate court order that tied sale of the former marital home to child-support/alimony calculations; appellant argued the trial judge abused discretion by delaying sale for up to 19 years and misapplied Kavanaugh guidance on alimony and child support.
The Appeals Court heard argument in Fisak v. Fisak over whether a probate judge abused discretion by delaying sale of the former marital home for an extended period while allocating payments that the appellant contends are effectively alimony disguised as child-support accounting.
Why it matters: the case raises equitable-division and alimony questions after the 2023 Kavanaugh decisions and Massachusetts alimony reform, including whether a court may hold a major marital asset off the market for many years and whether payments toward the property may be treated as alimony or child support under the required three-step analysis.
Appellant counsel Matthew Burack argued the lower court committed clear error by failing to properly apply Kavanaugh’s three-step analysis and by letting the house remain on the title for an extended prospective period—potentially 19 years—without finalizing a sale or buyout. Burack said prior cases allow short, measured delays in sale, but not multi-decade constraints that deny parties finality and equitable division.
The appellee’s counsel and the panel discussed that some precedents allow measured delays when children’s psychological needs justify postponing sale; the panel questioned whether the judge’s finding (that the youngest child would have difficulty if the mother had to leave the marital home) had evidentiary support and whether statutory durational limits on alimony (tied to marriage length) were implicated.
Appellant urged reversal or modification, saying the judgment contains inconsistent findings about child support deviations and that the judge both reduced child support and said she did not deviate from the guidelines. Counsel said the ruling left the parties tied to a single asset and produced inequity without the special findings other cases required for a long delay.
The court took the matter under advisement.
Next steps: the panel will issue a written decision addressing whether the probate judge abused discretion and whether the property-division and support findings must be revised.
