Following a bench trial, Jeffery Sponsler Husband and April Sponsler Wife were divorced pursuant to a Final Judgment and Decree of Divorce entered on June 16, 2009. The final decree was based, in part, upon various terms that Husband and Wife had agreed to at the final hearing on their divorce, and based on findings made by the trial court after considering the evidence presented by the parties on the remaining contested issues at the hearing. Husband filed an application to appeal with this Court, contending that the trial court erred by making the parties’ purported settlement agreement part of the final divorce decree, and that the trial court erred in denying his request for attorney fees. We granted Husband’s application for discretionary appeal in this divorce case pursuant to this Court’s Family Law Pilot Project, under which this Court will grant all non-frivolous discretionary applications seeking review of a final decree of divorce. Maddox v. Maddox , 278 Ga. 606 n. 1 604 SE2d 784 2004. For the reasons that follow, we affirm. The record reveals that, prior to the marriage, Husband owned a home and had financial assets including a 401k and several bank accounts. During the marriage, Husband and Wife purchased a marital home and a bar, the Will Henry Tavern the “Tavern”. The couple did not have children. After twelve years of marriage, Wife filed a petition for divorce in the Superior Court of Gwinnett County on August 15, 2007.
At the start of the February 19, 2009 bench trial to resolve the divorce, Husband called an expert witness to testify about the value of the Tavern. After the expert’s testimony, the court took a short recess. Based on discussions between the parties and the trial judge during the recess, the parties indicated that they had reached an agreement as to some of the issues in their divorce. Following the recess, both Husband and Wife testified under oath that they “understood that there have been pretrial conferences and settlement negotiations that were about to be set forth on the record before the court.” The trial court then asked the parties “who wants to put the agreement at this point on the record,” and Wife’s attorney volunteered to do so. While Wife’s attorney began to state the terms of the agreement, the trial court emphasized that, although it was in the parties’ best interests to settle: if either one of them feels like they’ve been forced to enter into this agreement or they didn’t enter into this agreement, they needed to say something now before Wife put it all in the record because this was not a ruling by the Court and the order would reflect this was an agreement by the parties. Neither party objected when the judge affirmed that it was her understanding that there was an agreement between the parties, and at no time during Wife’s recitation of the parties’ agreement did Husband object or even suggest that he did not think there was a binding agreement as to the items mentioned. After the agreed-to terms had been stated on the record, Wife took the stand and reaffirmed that she understood the terms of the parties’ agreement. The court then took evidence as to the remaining contested issues, which involved the parties’ 2007 taxes, a Fidelity stock account, some personal items, and furniture.
