Property adjustment orders

General principles

Section 24 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (MCA 1973) defines the court’s powers to make a property adjustment order in favour of a party to the marriage or to (or for the benefit of) any child of the family on the making of an order/decree of divorce, nullity or judicial separation. There are corresponding provisions in the Civil Partnership Act 2004 (CPA 2004). The order will not take effect until after the making of a final order/decree absolute (in divorce, nullity or dissolution) or the making of an order/decree of (judicial) separation. See Practice Note: Property adjustment orders—general principles including sections on: Orders that may be made by the court, Property adjustment orders for the benefit of children and Interim orders.

There is no definition of property in respect of which jurisdiction may be exercised. So long as the property is sufficiently identifiable to be specified in the order, it may be subject to a property adjustment order. The available types of property adjustment order include:

  1. a transfer of property

  2. a settlement of property

  3. a variation

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Monumental Supreme Court decision on matrimonialisation and sharing principle (Standish v Standish)

Family analysis: The Supreme Court’s much-anticipated judgment confirms unequivocally that the sharing principle does not apply to non-matrimonial property. Sharing of matrimonial property will usually be 50:50, though there may be a departure from equal division where justified. Non-matrimonial property typically has either a pre-marital origin, or, where it is received during the currency of the marriage, an external source (eg an inheritance). Title to an asset is expressly not determinative as to whether that asset is or is not matrimonial. Though non-matrimonial property may become matrimonial (ie ‘matrimonialisation’) this will depend on how the parties have been dealing with the asset and whether, over time, they have been treating that asset as shared between them. The concept of matrimonialisation is to be applied neither ‘widely’ nor ‘narrowly’ (contrary to what the Court of Appeal had held)—again, the enquiry should focus on how the parties have dealt with the asset. Where an asset is transferred from one spouse to another with the intention to save tax (as had occurred in the case), this will not normally show that the asset is being treated as shared. The Supreme Court ultimately upheld the decision to dismiss the wife’s appeal, though it did not wholly agree with the Court of Appeal’s reasoning. Pursuant to that decision (made on the sharing basis) the wife would be provided with circa £25m of the total assets figure of circa £132.6m, being half of the matrimonial assets figure of £50.48m. David Wilkinson, solicitor at Slater Heelis, considers the judgment.

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