Megan Wroe
The court has a wide range of factors that are considered when deciding how your assets should be divided on divorce. One of these factors is ‘the conduct of the parties, if that conduct is such that it would be the opinion of the court for it to be inequitable to disregard it’. Often this factor is raised by a party due to the behaviour of a spouse during the course of litigation, for example by failing to provide full disclosure or delaying proceedings unnecessarily (known as litigation conduct), however like in this recent case it can also be raised with respect to a spouse’s behaviour during the marriage.
A very high bar must be met for conduct to be considered.
The judge ruled that this bar had been reached in this case.
The background to this case is that the parties were married for approximately 12 years with one child. At the time they met, the husband’s former wife was dying of cancer and so he was vulnerable.. Amongst other things, the wife had lied to him by telling him that she was on her way to becoming a High Court judge and persuading him to fund studies and expensive trips, and she also claimed to have high-level political friends. Once married, the wife subjected her husband to sustained emotional, physical and financial abuse and deceit. She had also made unfounded allegations of rape and abuse by him.
The wife had been convicted of fraud and dishonesty in the criminal courts and persuaded her husband to pay the fines and compensation she owed.
The husband had retired from his successful career in the city. His assets at the time of the final hearing were just over £22 million – which was little increase from the £21.6 million assets he held at the time he first cohabited with his wife – likely due to his funding of the family’s living costs. The couple owned two houses jointly, and the wife brought one property into the marriage, for which she had borrowed £135,000 from the husband, pre-marriage. The net value of the jointly owned homes was £6,305,000 (not including adjacent farmland that was leased out and which was not counted as a matrimonial asset). These matrimonial assets would ordinarily be subject to the sharing principle (matrimonial assets being shared 50%), even though the wife had not contributed to them.
The judge found that, not only had the wife not contributed to the assets, but it would be ‘inequitable’ to disregard her ‘conduct’ during the marriage as it had been so serious, describing her behaviour as ‘obvious and gross’. He also found that large amounts of money had been transferred to the wife during the marriage based on untruths – much of it placed overseas. He reduced the usual ‘equitable’ starting point for financial settlement and awarded the wife only 30% of the value of the matrimonial assets. He ordered the husband to pay the wife £750,000 to complete the financial settlement and to stop any further maintenance payments. The wife also kept the property that is in her name plus some other possessions.
The judge acknowledged that although the wife did not have any significant earning capacity, partly due to her fraud conviction, she should not be entitled to enjoy her previous marital standard of living any longer and that the settlement was enough to meet her needs.
Megan Wroe, head of Graysons’ family team, explains: “While the introduction of no-fault divorce has simplified the legal process of ending a marriage, meaning neither party needs to assign blame, it is possible that a party’s behaviour during the marriage may still be relevant when it comes to your financial settlement. As this case shows this behaviour has to be significant and, generally speaking, there needs to be a link between that behaviour and the impact on your financial situation. If you believe there are issues of conduct that are relevant to your financial settlement, it is important that you seek early legal advice so that these issues can be explored fully. If you do have a case for conduct it is important that this is set out in full and correctly at the outset of your case”
Megan is supported by a senior family law solicitor Angela Moores, who has more than 30 years’ experience advising on financial settlements, including complex and high-value cases as well as Isabella Franchini who is a newly qualified solicitor in the team.
If you need advice on any issue relating to the breakdown of your relationship, contact our experts now. We offer all new clients a free initial appointment at which we can discuss your individual circumstances.
Author: Megan Wroe
