This is something that almost everyone encounters, and most people can't handle it well. Read other people's stories and increase your own knowledge.
Brief facts of the case:
The young couple buys a house after marriage, and the parents contribute to the house, and the house is registered in the name of the young couple.
Other details:
1. Parents transfer money to their children, and the children take the money to contribute to the purchase of the house;
2. The party advocating the loan said that it verbally said that the money was a loan at that time, but did not provide evidence;
3. One of the spouses does not know about it and only raises it at the time of divorce;
Case source: (2018) Zhe 01 Min Zhong No. 4724
Lawyer Yang Qinren's comments:
Many people ask whether the parents' contribution to the purchase of a house after marriage is a gift or a joint loan?
When there are no other circumstances to presume the capital contribution, how does the court deal with the true intention of the party contributing the capital?
Professional lawyers have shared 6 issues before searching for a large number of cases. The conclusion given is that the court can make its own judgment.
This case was filed by the Hangzhou court, and the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court (upheld in the second instance) determined that it was a loan. See below for details.
In the Wuxi Intermediate People's Court, (2020) Su 02 Min Zhong No. 278 recognized as a gift. The court's reasoning was that it was common for parents to contribute funds to improve the living conditions of their children's families after their children's marriage, which was also in line with marriage and family customs with Chinese characteristics. When the relationship between the husband and wife is harmonious, there is no special agreement on the contribution, and once the divorce is reversed, it is common for one of the parents to sue for recovery on the grounds of borrowing. The parties in this case should learn from the consequences of losing the lawsuit, value harmony, and do not take the expectation of economic interests as higher than family affection and years of getting along with each other, so as to create an atmosphere conducive to the establishment of correct values by the younger generations of the family.
In the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court, (2022) Yue 0115 Min Chu No. 8789 was recognized as a gift. The court's reasoning was that the plaintiff and the defendant were father and son, and the plaintiff had a financial gap of 60,000 yuan when purchasing the car, and his father, the plaintiff in this case, transferred 60,000 yuan to the plaintiff for the purchase of the car。
Finally, I conclude that the court has discretion in this kind of issue, and the Supreme People's Court will not make uniform provisions on this issue recently, at least not in the recent Second Judicial Interpretation on Marriage. The main reason why there are no regulations is that China has a vast territory and huge differences in economic living standards in various places. The economic base determines the superstructure, and such a large difference in the economic base is indeed prone to controversy when the same superstructure is applied.
(2018) Zhe 01 Min Zhong No. 4724, the court held that partially,
The court of first instance held that
The focus of the dispute in this case is whether the nature of the money involved in the case is a gift or a loan, and if it is a loan, whether it is a joint debt of Li Xiaoshuai and Wang Xiaomei. Xiaoshuai's mother argued that the remittance was a joint debt of husband and wife borrowed from Wang Xiaomei and Li Xiaoshuai on the basis of the fact of the payment of the money and the IOU involved in the case, while Wang Xiaomei held that the IOU involved in the case was not true and that it was a false litigation act by Xiaoshuai's mother and Li Xiaoshuai's mother and son, with the intention that Wang Xiaomei and Li Xiaoshuai's divorce would become a false lawsuit in the future to make Wang Xiaomei unable to share the property, and that Xiaoshuai's mother should have remitted the payment as a gift. In this regard, the court of first instance commented as follows: <中华人民共和国婚姻法>Paragraph 2 of Article 22 of the Interpretation (II) of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of the Supreme People's Court stipulates that "after the parties get married, if the parents contribute to the purchase of a house for both parties, the contribution shall be deemed to be a gift to both husband and wife, unless the parents expressly express the gift to one of the parties". It should be understood that this provision applies to the division of joint property between the husband and wife in divorce, and the question of whether it is a gift to one or both spouses is resolved, provided that the parental contribution can be recognized as a gift. Conversely, parental contributions do not necessarily have to be characterized as gifts. Respecting the elderly and the Young, is the foundation of humanity and is also advocated by the law. Salesians are legally a burden on their parents. As soon as the children reach adulthood, they should live on their own feet, and their parents should continue to care for them, and the children should also receive them, but it is not the legal obligation of the parents at this time. Nowadays, affected by high housing prices, children just join the work and face the pressure of starting a family, although it is common for parents to fund the purchase of houses under limited economic conditions, but children must not think that it is natural for parents to contribute, it is not easy for parents to raise their children to adulthood, and it is really strict to require parents to continue to pay unconditionally after children reach adulthood, and it is also not supported by the law. Therefore, if the parents do not clearly state that the contribution is a gift at the time of their contribution, based on the time limit of the parents' obligation to raise the child, the contribution should be deemed to be a temporary loan of funds to the children, the purpose of which is to help the children through the period of economic hardship, and the children should bear the obligation to repay, so as to protect the rights and interests of the parents themselves, and prevent the children from starting a family and putting the parents in a financial embarrassment, which is also the due morality of respecting the elderly. As to whether the parents demand repayment from their children afterwards, it is within the scope of the parents' exercise of their own creditor's rights or waiver of their own creditor's rights, and has nothing to do with the objective existence of the creditor's rights themselves. In this case, Wang Xiaomei did not raise any objection to the fact that the 1.13 million yuan involved in the case was used for the purchase of houses and the purpose of the purchased houses, and in the absence of other evidence to prove the existence of the expression of intent of Xiaoshuai's mother's gift, according to the above commentary, the 1.13 million yuan involved in the case should be determined to be a loan, and based on the purpose of the money and the objective fact that the purchased houses were registered in the names of Wang Xiaomei and Li Xiaoshuai, it should be determined that the loan was a joint debt of Wang Xiaomei and Li Xiaoshuai, and Wang Xiaomei and Li Xiaoshuai should repay the debt in accordance with law. As for the IOU involved in the case. As a proof of the existence and occurrence of the lending relationship, the IOU has a high degree of probative force in the case of loan disputes. However, in this case, based on the identity relationship between the parties, the duration of the aforesaid legal obligations arising from the identity relationship, and the allocation of the burden of proof for the act of donation, this case is sufficient to make a substantive judgment under the determination of facts, so the IOU involved in the case does not have a decisive probative effect on the handling of this case. Therefore, Wang Xiaomei's view of collusion between Xiaoshuai's mother and Li Xiaoshuai's mother and son on the IOU itself is not adopted.
The court of second instance held that
The focus of the dispute in this case is whether the nature of the money under the remittance voucher involved in the case is a gift or a loan. In this case, Xiaoshuai's mother held two IOUs issued by Li Xiaoshuai, and Wang Xiaomei also confirmed that she had received 1.13 million yuan from Xiaoshuai's mother, so Xiaoshuai's mother had already borne the corresponding burden of proof for the existence of the loan relationship involved in the case. Although Wang Xiaomei asserted that the two payments were given to her and Li Xiaoshuai by Xiaoshuai's mother, she failed to provide documentary evidence, audio-visual materials, In addition, although Interpretation 2 of the Marriage Law stipulates that if the parents contribute to the purchase of a house for both parties after they get married, the contribution shall be deemed to be a gift to both husband and wife, but the premise should first respect the agreement between the parents and children on the nature of the capital contribution, and only when there is no agreement or the agreement is unclear will the issue of determining the nature of the parental capital contribution as a gift。 Therefore, Wang Xiaomei's appeal assertion that the nature of the money involved in the case was a gift lacks factual and legal basis, and this court does not accept it. In view of Wang Xiaomei's recognition that the money involved in the case was used to purchase family real estate, and that the parties agreed at the time of divorce that the property would be owned by Wang Xiaomei after paying part of the discount to Li Xiaoshuai, the loan involved in the case should be recognized as a joint debt of the husband and wife, and Li Xiaoshuai and Wang Xiaomei should jointly return it.
