In re the Marriage of Shan and Liu

2026-06-24No. 25-0693

Summary · law.co

Holding. The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's modified decree awarding the house to the wife, finding that the husband's failure to provide a complete trial transcript prevented meaningful appellate review of his statutory factors challenge.

Following a divorce trial, the district court ordered the marital home—the couple's most valuable asset—to be sold with proceeds divided equally, because neither party could afford to pay the other an equalization payment if one retained the house. The wife later filed a motion asking to keep the home and pay the husband $110,000 for his equity share, which would allow her to house their teenage child until high school graduation. The district court granted this modification. On appeal, the husband argued the court failed to properly consider Iowa law requiring consideration of awarding the family home to the parent with physical custody. However, the husband provided only a partial trial transcript to the appellate court, making it impossible to review all statutory factors relevant to property division.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

Sufficiency of appellate record and transcript requirements
Equitable division of marital property in divorce
Weight of factor favoring custodial parent's retention of family home
Modification of divorce decree post-judgment

Procedural posture

The husband appealed the district court's modified dissolution decree that awarded the marital home to the wife with a requirement she pay him $110,000 in equity.

Authorities cited

827 N.W.2d 671

Opinion · public domain

majority opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 25-0693

Filed June 24, 2026

In re the Marriage of Xiaoyan Shan and Hong Liu

Upon the Petition of

Xiaoyan Shan,

Petitioner–Appellee,

And Concerning

Hong Liu,

Respondent–Appellant.

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Johnson County,

The Honorable Kevin McKeever, Judge.

AFFIRMED

Hong Liu, Iowa City, self-represented appellant.

Xiaoyan Shan, Iowa City, self-represented appellee.

Considered without oral argument

by Greer, P.J., and Schumacher and Ahlers, JJ.

Opinion by Ahlers, J.

AHLERS, Judge.

Following a trial, the district court issued a decree dissolving the marriage of Xiaoyan Shan and Hong Liu. In the decree, the court noted that the marital house was by far the highest-value asset the parties owned, and if the court awarded the house to one party, the party receiving it would not have the ﬁnancial ability to make the equalization payment necessary to equitably divide the marital net worth. As a result, the court ordered the marital house to be sold and the proceeds equally divided.

The wife ﬁled a post-trial motion asking the court to modify the decree to award the house to her and require her to pay the husband $110,000 for his share of the equity in the house. The wife pointed out that this would enable her to keep the house at least until the parties’ ﬁfteen-year-old child— who was placed in the physical care of the wife—graduated high school. The court granted the motion and ordered the wife to reﬁnance the house and pay the husband $110,000 for his equity in the house within ninety days. The order also provided that if the wife was unable to comply with the modiﬁed terms, the original decree terms would apply.

The husband appeals. He contends the district court failed to properly consider Iowa Code section 598.21(5)(g) (2022)—which requires the court to consider the desirability of awarding the family home to the party having physical care of the child (i.e., the wife)—when it ordered the immediate sale of the house. The husband’s brief then goes on to state that, if the court defers sale of the house, he “is willing to commit” to various terms of a deferred payment arrangement. The wife ﬁled a “notice of waiver of appellee’s brief and statement” in which she essentially makes a counteroﬀer to the oﬀer made by the husband in his brief.

We review dissolution-of-marriage appeals de novo. In re Marriage of Miller, 966 N.W.2d 630, 635 (Iowa 2021). With de novo review, we examine the entire record and adjudicate property division issues anew. In re Marriage of McDermott, 827 N.W.2d 671, 676 (Iowa 2013). However, we disturb the district court’s ruling only when it fails to do equity. Id.

We reject the husband’s challenge. In a dissolution case, the property must be equitably divided. Id. at 678. This requires us to look at all the factors listed in Iowa Code section 598.21(5), not just the factor in section 598.21(5)(g) highlighted by the husband. See id. In essence, the property division question is a puzzle, and the desirability of awarding the house to the wife as the party with physical care of the minor child is just one piece of that puzzle. Unfortunately, we do not have access to the other pieces of the puzzle. That is because, though the record reveals that the trial occurred over the course of three days, the husband provided us only with the transcript of one witness—a witness who prepared a comparative market analysis on the house. Without the entire transcript, we have no way of assessing the statutory factors necessary to address the husband’s challenge to the property division. It was the husband’s obligation, as the appellant, “to ensure that the transcripts of any district court proceeding needed for resolution of the appeal are included in the record.” See In re Marriage of Sprague, 33 N.W.3d 589, 593 (Iowa 2026) (quoting Iowa R. App. P. 6.803(1)). Because the husband failed to fulﬁl that obligation, we do not have the record we need to resolve his challenge, and the consequence for that failure is to aﬃrm. See id. at 594.

Before concluding, we again note that the parties’ appellate ﬁlings essentially involve making oﬀers and counteroﬀers as to what they would like to see happen with the marital house. The parties, as unmarried people, are

free to enter any lawful agreement that they’d like. But we will not weigh in on those negotiations, as we serve as an appellate court, not as mediators of disputes.

AFFIRMED.