Bridgford v. Riddell

Citations

• 55 Ill. 261

Syllabus

<p>1. Voluntary conveyance—whether fraudulent as to creditors. It is competent for a party to create a separate estate for his wife out of his own property, if there are no creditors of the husband at the time whose rights will be affected thereby, or even if there are creditors, if the husband retains a sufficient amount to satisfy their claims.</p> <p>2. The mere fact that such an arrangement is voluntary on the part of the husband, without a valuable consideration, will not authorize a subsequent creditor to question it. If, however, the husband be insolvent, or the conveyance is made with a view to indebtedness to be contracted and with the intent to defraud creditors, it will be fraudulent and void as to them, and any creditor will be authorized to attack it.</p> <p>3. Voluntary conveyance—what constitutes. Where money belonging to a married woman was reduced to possession by the husband prior to the act of 1861 securing to married women their separate property, it became, under the common law, the absolute property of the husband, and a conveyance of land purchased with such money, to the wife, by the procurement of the husband, even under an agreement originally made between them that the wife’s money should be kept and regarded as her separate property, would nevertheless be deemed a purely voluntary conveyance, as regards such creditors of the husband as would have the right to question the transaction on that ground.</p> <p>4. And in such case the rights of the creditors of the husband would not be affected by the fact that the conveyance to the wife was made after the act of 1861 was in force. The husband having before that time reduced the separate funds of the wife to possession, he could not, after the passage of the act, restore the money so as to make it her separate estate, if the rights of creditors had intervened.</p> <p>5. Same—to what time the equities of the voluntary grantee relate. Where money belonging to the wife was reduced to possession b