Potential income from assets held in a trust should not be imputed to a co-beneficiary/co-trustee, Virginia's Court of Appeals found in an alimony case, Montgomery v. Montgomery (ca. Dec. 2017, unpublished). The property in this case was residential and the trial court had imputed rental income from it. The Court of Appeals reasons that the Circuit Court lacked authority to reach into the trust to force the wife and her co-trustee, not a party to the case, to dispose of the trust property; that the wife as co-trustee had not yet distributed the trust assets and so she had not yet inherited the property -- she only had "a future beneficial interest." The trial court could not impute income "based upon undistributed trust assets."
Also, Virginia law "does not require wife to sell her interest in the two residential properties to relieve husband from his spousal support obligation."
But the trial court's imputation of another $5,000 [monthly?], because the wife was voluntarily unemployed, is not reversed. The case is remanded to recalculate income without the rental income.
No fees are awarded, as both sides' arguments "are fairly debatable and indeed, each has partially prevailed."