A rich British woman was ordered to share half of the assets, bought using her money, with her unemployed South African husband during a divorce settlement.
The order was made by the High Court in Johannesburg after the wife filed for divorce and also sought a forfeiture of benefits against her husband, who is 17 years her junior.
The former couple met in Windhoek, Namibia in 2014. In 2015, the husband stopped working and the couple left Namibia and relocated to South Africa to start a new life together.
They lived at the husband’s house in Lyndhaven, Roodepoort.
They subsequently got married in community of property on September 30, 2016. They didn’t have children in their marriage.
Prior to their marriage, the woman was in the process of divorce from her previous marriage of 18 years. As part of a divorce settlement from that marriage, she received funds that were deposited into her new husband’s bank account.
From the funds, the husband transferred over R1 million into his FNB 32 Day Flexi investment account. As expected, he controlled the account and the wife was only receiving notifications of the transactions made from the account.
The wife sold one of her Namibian properties worth R4.5 million and used part of the proceeds to buy their marital home in Auckland Park, Johannesburg, for R2.7 million and also bought her husband an Audi Cabriolet.
Her total estate was valued at approximately R6 million at the time of their marriage.
After two years and nine months of marriage, the wife left the marital home and went back to the United Kingdom in November 2018.
In June 2019, she filed for divorce and sought a forfeiture of assets against her husband. She wanted him to forfeit his share of the Auckland Park house, the Audi Cabriolet that she bought for him, and proceeds from the Flexi investment account.
In her application, she said soon after they got married, the husband stopped showing love and care towards her. He was contemptuous towards her on a daily basis. She stated that the relationship slowly started to breakdown due to physical, verbal, and emotional abuse.
She said the husband never contributed towards anything in their joint estate. She added that after she moved back to the UK, she was still paying the gardener for regular gardening and repairs to the pool whilst the husband was living in the house, rent free, mortgage free and collecting at least R7,000 from renting out the cottage.
In addition, she said in April 2020, the husband withdrew all the money from the Flexi investment account without her knowledge and that this money was meant to be her retirement fund as she did not have a pension.
In his response, the husband admitted that they would have verbal altercations but he denied all the allegations of abuse levelled against him.
He alleged that the wife was the one who was controlling and that she was abusing him emotionally because she came to the relationship with a lot of money.
He said when they met, he had a job working as a material systems controller at a Uranium mine earning about R60,000 every month.
He said he had a stand in Carletonville, a house in Roodepoort worth about R600,000, a Colt L 200 bakkie, a VW Golf and a Polo Cross.
He said his wife introduced him to the lavish lifestyle including an expensive car, family holidays, expensive clothes and gadgets.
The wife even paid the wedding expenses and took care of his son from a previous relationship.
He further stated that the wife was the one who encouraged him to resign from his job in Namibia and promised to support and help him to start a business with the money she was expecting from her divorce settlement.
According to him, their relationship took strain when the business failed to generate the money than they had anticipated. Hence he decided to seek employment again in 2017 and got a job in Durban and worked there for three years.
In his counter claim, he wanted his wife to forfeit her share of the Auckland Park house based on the fact that she did not contribute to the repair, maintenance and upkeep since she left in 2018.
He contended that the Audi A3 was bought for him as a gift before marriage and therefore, it belonged to him. He also wanted the wife to forfeit the Colt Bakkie because she had no use for it.
Acting Judge JL Bhengu said he was not convinced that the husband should forfeit the house and the Audi A3 because when the couple moved to South Africa, the husband provided them with accommodation until they sold the house as the wife had suggested.
The wife paid for renovations to that house to boost its resale value and the house was sold for R770,000 and the husband used the profit of at least R200,000 to contribute to the household expenses in their new home.
Bengu said it has been five years since the wife left their home and the husband has been the one responsible for the maintenance of the house and all motor vehicles. He took an insurance policy for all vehicles as well as household contents and all insurances were up to date.
The husband paid for a security company to ensure that the house was safe and was also paying for the municipal rates account which was up to date.
“His evidence was that if he had not taken care of the house for over five years in the absence of the plaintiff (wife), the house would have been dilapidated. He stated that the household contents and the plaintiff’s personal effects were still intact just as she had left them in 2018,” said the judge.
Bengu order a division of the joint estate and dismissed the husband’s counter claim.
The husband was ordered to pay back the over R1 million which was deposited into his FNB 32 Day Flexi investment account.
Both parties are responsible for their own costs of the application.
sinenhlanhla.masilela@iol.co.za
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