Vijayalakshmi Nadar v. Thinakar Nadar

Mckinney, Texas, family law lawyer represented the parties in a divorce.

ppellee and appellant were divorced, and as pertinent here, the final decree
of divorce awarded to appellee a Plano house as his sole and separate property and
divested appellant of all right, title, interest, and claim in the property. Appellant
was awarded a flat in Mumbai as her sole and separate property, and appellee was
divested of all right, title, interest, and claim to the property. The parties were
ordered to execute any and all documents necessary and proper to fulfill this division of property. The decree ordered appellant to sign a special warranty deed to transfer her interest in the Plano house over to appellee, who was ordered to sign any document required to transfer his interest in the Mumbai flat over to appellant.
Appellant was ordered to vacate the Plano house “on a mutually agreed to date but
in no event not later [sic] than by 8:00 p.m. on February 19, 2017.” The decree also
ordered that, except as otherwise provided in the decree, within ten days of receiving written notice from the other party, the party shall execute and deliver to the other party any deeds or other documents as may be necessary to effectuate the provisions and purposes of the decree.

The divorce was judicially pronounced on December 12, 2016, but the decree
was not signed until February 24, 2017.


Six years later, on May 19, 2023, appellee filed a petition for clarification of
property division, in which he asserted that appellant was still living in the Plano
residence. Appellee stated that the parties had been unable to agree on a date for
appellant to vacate the residence and that the decree’s limit for appellant to leave
(February 19, 2017) was five days prior to the date the divorce decree was signed.
Appellee sought an order, among other things, directing appellant to vacate and
transfer possession of the residence by “a certain date and time subsequent to the
date of the entry of the clarification order” and to execute the special warranty deed,
the form of which was attached to the petition.

When an agreement does not specify a deadline for
performance, a reasonable time for performance is implied. Regeci v. Regeci, No.
05-13-00501-CV, 2014 WL 2743192, at *5 (Tex. App.—Dallas June 16, 2014, pet.
denied) (mem. op.). A clarification order may be entered to establish a precise date
for compliance when a divorce decree is imprecise as to a timeframe for compliance.
See Hollingsworth v. Hollingsworth, 274 S.W.3d 811, 818 (Tex. App.—Dallas
2008, no pet.) (concluding that trial court did not err in entering clarification order
providing a precise time for payment because decree had imprecisely ordered the
appellant to pay taxes “timely”)

Clarification order issues.

Affirmed