Family Justice Courts Case Highlights

The Joint Summary facilitates the fair disposal of the disputes between the parties and serves to avoid protracted litigation and unnecessary delays. The parties are put on ample notice by the words on the face of the Joint Summary that the position they take will be relied upon by the court in coming to its decision.

Where one of the parties to the marriage has received a gift or inheritance but evinces an intention to deal with that asset by, for example, giving it to the other party or incorporating it into the family estate, it is not inconsistent with s 112 for the court to give effect to such intention.

If one party having sole title decides unilaterally to sell or dispose of a non-cash matrimonial asset between the IJ and ancillary hearing, he will take the risk of any fluctuation in fair open market value between the sale and ancillary hearing date. The other party will have the higher of either the actual sale price or the open market valuation price ascertained as at or as close as possible to the ancillary order date.

The mere fact that the parties have been paying for certain items during the marriage does not automatically render such expenses reasonable expenses for the purposes of determining maintenance. In seeking to quantify the child’s reasonable expenses, parties should avoid an overly mathematical approach where receipts are adduced to prove every single item of expenditure.

In the first step of the structured approach, the crux of the exercise is in ascertaining the parties’ respective direct contributions towards acquiring the matrimonial assets. In this step, the court does not necessarily need to determine the parties’ property rights or specific beneficial ownership in the assets in order to calculate the direct contributions of the parties. What is instead important is the financial contributions that go towards an asset falling within the definition of “matrimonial asset”.

A third party to a divorce proceeding should commence independent civil proceedings against either or both the spouses for a declaration as to his interest in any property and other relief.

If the matrimonial flat is not yet an asset that could be sold in the open market as the Minimum Occupation Period would still apply, it is not open to the court to speculate what the potential price of the flat would be if it is sold in the future.

The marriage in the present case lasted about 11 and a half years, much shorter than the examples which the court discussed in TNL v TNK. Different considerations apply to such mid-length marriages.

Only the proportion of the compensation corresponding to special damages and past loss of earnings until the date of interim judgment, as well as interest, should be included in the pool of matrimonial assets.

Maintenance is ordered, not to indulge the child with luxuries, but to provide for the child’s reasonable financial needs. Maintenance is also not a corporate reimbursement scheme.