BRISCOE, Chief Judge.
Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee Carl Davis appeals from a decision by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Kansas (Bankruptcy Court), which was affirmed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Appellate Panel of the Tenth Circuit (BAP). Davis sought to avoid, as a fraudulent conveyance, debtor Tung Nguyen's transfer to his sister of his interest in a piece of real property. Both the Bankruptcy Court and the BAP concluded that Nguyen possessed only bare legal title to the property and that such an interest is not one that may be avoided under the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. § 548(a)(1)(B). Exercising jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 158(d)(1), we affirm the Bankruptcy Court's decision.
This case stems from several transactions related to a single piece of real property in Reno County, Kansas. On September 26, 2007, Hoa Thi Pham purchased the property in joint tenancy with her friend (now common-law husband) Noel Esplund, with Pham contributing two-thirds of the approximately $170,000 purchase price and Esplund contributing one-third. Two days after purchasing the land, Pham and Esplund conveyed the property to Esplund and to Pham's children, Tung Nguyen and Lisa Dang (now Lisa Stirrat), as joint tenants with rights of survivorship.
On May 29, 2008, Nguyen transferred his interest in the land to Dang and Esplund via a quitclaim deed for no compensation.
After an evidentiary hearing, the Bankruptcy Court concluded that Nguyen possessed only bare legal title to the property and that his mother possessed equitable ownership of his one-third share. The court concluded that Pham's transfer to her children fell under a provision of Kansas law that allows a resulting trust to form when one party (the payor) provides the consideration for a piece of property, but enters into an agreement with another non-paying party "without fraudulent intent" for the non-paying party to hold the property in trust for the payor. Kan. Stat. Ann. § 58-2408. Specifically, the court determined that Pham and Nguyen had such an agreement based on the testimony provided by Pham and Nguyen about the circumstances of the transfer. After subsequent briefing, the Bankruptcy Court concluded that bare legal title, when transferred for no consideration, is not an "interest in property" that may be avoided under § 548(a)(1)(B) and denied Davis's requested relief. In re Nguyen, No. 09-11640, 2013 WL 153755, at *2 & n. 13 (Bankr.D.Kan. Jan. 15, 2013) (collecting bankruptcy court cases that have so held). The trustee appealed the decision to the BAP, which affirmed the Bankruptcy Court's decision.
"Although this appeal is from a decision by the BAP, we review only the Bankruptcy Court's decision." In re Miller, 666 F.3d 1255, 1260 (10th Cir.2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). "By this we do not mean that we ignore the procedural posture of the case before us — an appeal from a BAP decision. Rather, we mean that we treat the BAP as a subordinate appellate tribunal whose rulings are not entitled to any deference (although they certainly may be persuasive)." In re Warren, 512 F.3d 1241, 1248 (10th Cir.2008). "We review matters of law de novo, and we review factual findings made by the bankruptcy court for clear error." Miller, 666 F.3d at 1260 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The parties do not appear to dispute that, if the Bankruptcy Court and the BAP are correct that Nguyen merely possessed "bare legal title" to the property interest in question, Davis may not use § 548(a)(1)(B) of the Bankruptcy Code to
Thus, Davis's argument on appeal rests on the idea that a resulting trust is incompatible with a joint tenancy under Kansas law and this circuit's precedent. Davis argues that if a resulting trust is indeed legally impossible, Nguyen actually possessed legal and equitable title to a one-third interest in the property that § 548(a)(1)(B) may reach. Specifically, Davis contends that because a joint tenancy requires the "four unities" of time, title, interest, and possession, and because Esplund indisputedly possessed a one-third legal and equitable interest in the property in question, Dang and Nguyen must also have possessed both legal and equitable title to the property as part of the joint tenancy arrangement. Aplt. Br. at 9; see also 220 Am.Jur.2d Cotenancy and Joint Ownership § 5 (Feb. 2015) ("`Unity of interest,' as one of the four unities required for the existence of a joint tenancy, means that the joint tenants' shares are all equal and the duration and quality, legal or equitable, of their estates are the same.").
Although Davis is correct that the formation of a joint tenancy generally requires those four unities, it is nonetheless clear that Kansas courts have concluded that holding real property as a joint tenancy does not bar the existence of an equitable trust. See, e.g., Winsor v. Powell, 209 Kan. 292, 497 P.2d 292, 299 (1972); see also Univ. State Bank v. Blevins, 227 Kan. 40, 605 P.2d 91, 95 (1980). Although Kansas caselaw does not state precisely why a resulting trust would not destroy the unity of interest in a joint tenancy, Kansas courts have stated that equitable trusts and joint tenancies are compatible.
Winsor, 497 P.2d at 299; see also Blevins, 605 P.2d at 95 (affirming Winsor and concluding that "incidents of joint ownership of personal property ... [a]re no bar to a resulting trust.... [T]he holding of title to realty in joint tenancy or as tenants in common does not prevent there being a resulting trust").
Other state courts have similarly concluded that resulting trusts are compatible with joint tenancies. Two separate, but related, rationales seem to underlie those decisions. First is the idea that a resulting trust is an equitable remedy that can override aspects of a joint tenancy without destroying it. See, e.g., Fenderson v. Fenderson, 454 Pa.Super. 412, 685 A.2d 600, 607 (Ct.1996) (concluding "that the creation of a resulting trust does not destroy the four unities" and that a party not listed on the deed was nonetheless a joint tenant due to the trust). A second rationale appears to be that a resulting trust would prevail over a joint tenancy and potentially destroy the unity of interest, resulting in a tenancy in common. See Kane v. Johnson, 397 Ill. 112, 73 N.E.2d 321, 324 (1947) ("The unities of interest in the property were not the same. The fact that the deed purported to convey the property in joint tenancy ... would not prevent the application of the equitable principles which control the establishment of a resulting trust.").
Davis's second argument on appeal is that this court's precedent in Dexter v. Dexter, 481 F.2d 711 (10th Cir.1973), controls this case. In Dexter, we said that Kansas's resulting trust "statute does not apply when title to property is taken in joint tenancy." Id. at 714. The BAP disagreed with Davis and concluded that the Kansas Supreme Court's subsequent statements in Blevins, 605 P.2d at 94-95, controlled the case. In re Nguyen, 514 B.R. 719, 2014 WL 1870653, *5-6 (10th Cir. BAP 2014). Both Davis and the BAP attempt to factually distinguish this case from Blevins and Dexter, respectively. In Dexter, a son was claiming to be a trust beneficiary based on statements in his parents' will and oral statements made during their lifetime that the property they held in joint tenancy should ultimately benefit the son. 481 F.2d at 713. In Blevins, a father and son ostensibly held a piece of property in joint tenancy, but the father argued that the son held his property interest in trust for the father, who had paid for and controlled the property. 605 P.2d at 93-94. The Blevins court addressed Dexter by noting that "the claimant [in Dexter] was not a joint tenant with one supplying the consideration, but was challenging succession to ownership under the survivorship provisions of the deed by claiming an equitable right to succeed to the survivor's interest." Blevins, 605 P.2d at 94.
Davis argues that the Kansas Supreme Court in Blevins deliberately did not reject Dexter's holding, choosing instead to reserve its applicability for situations, such as the one presented here, where a party claiming to be a beneficiary of a resulting trust is not listed on the joint tenancy deed.
As Davis states, the BAP's factual distinction seems to relate more to the amount and quality of proof needed to establish a resulting trust under Kansas law than to Dexter's broad holding that the resulting trust statute is incompatible with joint tenancies. But Davis's purported factual distinction — that Dexter still applies to cases in which the trust beneficiary is not listed as a joint tenant on the deed — is also not satisfying. Although there are many reasons why being listed on a deed is useful in property law, being able to receive the benefit of an equitable trust is not one of them.
Thus, Blevins reads more like an implied rejection of Dexter than a mere factual distinction, particularly given its statement that "[t]he statute, K.S.A. [§] 58-2408, speaks of `the land or some interest therein ....'; joint interests are not excluded." Blevins, 605 P.2d at 94-95. "When an intervening decision of a state's highest court has resolved an issue of state law directly contrary to this circuit's prediction of how the state court would resolve the same issue, we are bound by the later state ruling, not by our prior panel's interpretation of state law." Blackhawk-Cent. City Sanitation Dist. v. Am. Guarantee & Liab. Ins. Co., 214 F.3d 1183, 1194 n. 4 (10th Cir.2000). Although the Kansas Supreme Court did not say outright that Dexter was wrongly decided, its holding in Blevins indicates that we are no longer bound by the broad conclusion of Dexter that Kan. Stat. Ann. § 58-2408 does not apply to joint tenancy situations.
For the reasons set forth above, we AFFIRM the Bankruptcy Court's denial of relief to Davis under 11 U.S.C. § 548(a)(1)(B).