It is a general rule of thumb that on divorce, the marital assets should be divided more or less equally between the ex-spouses. However, there are circumstances in which this does not hold good and several factors can affect how the assets are apportioned. One such factor is the length of the marriage.
In a recent case heard in the Court of Appeal, a man appealed an order giving his ex-wife assets including the shares in the company which owned the business premises from which their family company traded. The district judge had also ordered him to make payments to his ex-wife, which would be reduced once the former matrimonial home had been sold.
The appeal was based on the facts that the trading company had been established prior to the marriage and that it was the main source of the family’s income. The ex-husband claimed that the presumption of equal division of the assets was incorrect, especially as the marriage had lasted only ten years. He also argued that his ex-wife’s assets were more easily saleable than his and that the payment of rents from the company to the landlord company was ‘double counting’ in favour of his ex-wife.
The judges hearing the appeal thought the decision of the district judge was flawed, especially as regards leaving the ex-wife as the de facto landlord of her ex-husband’s company. In the judge’s view, leaving the couple financially linked as landlord and tenant was ‘a recipe for ongoing dispute’.
The Court ruled that various revisions to the order should be made and gave the husband the right, until 1 January 2009, to buy the shares in the landlord company. |
