How should the court treat an inheritance received at the end of a long marriage?

That was the question for the judge to decide in a recent financial remedies case in the Family Court at Exeter.

The relevant facts in the case were that the parties began living together in 1997, got married in 2010, and separated in 2023. The only non-pension marital asset was the former matrimonial home, which had an an equity of about £330,000. However, six months before the separation the husband’s father died, and post-separation the husband received approximately £310,000 from his father’s estate.

As the judge explained, the law he had to apply, in simple terms, is that the court must share the matrimonial assets between the parties, either equally or, if the circumstances require it, in unequal shares.

‘Matrimonial assets’ are those assets that were acquired during the marriage, through the joint efforts of the parties to the marriage. Accordingly, assets acquired before the marriage (or, more accurately, before the parties began living together), assets acquired after the parties separated, gifts to one party, or inheritances are considered to be ‘non-matrimonial’.

And here is the crucial part: non-matrimonial assets should normally remain in the ownership of the party that acquired them, unless they are required to meet the financial needs of the other party.

In his words, the particular issue for the judge in this case was as follows: “When nonmarital assets, specifically inherited assets, come into existence right at the end of a very long relationship, how much should they be invaded to provide for the other spouse for their needs for a higher standard than would have occurred on divorce based on only the marital assets available during the marriage?”

This was a case for an equal sharing of the matrimonial assets, the parties each being in a similar financial position. This would mean that the wife would receive half of the value of the former matrimonial home, i.e. £165,000.

As the judge said, if that were the only asset, this modest sum would leave the parties struggling to obtain suitable accommodation.

But here there was another asset: the husband’s inheritance.

The wife originally sought an order that she receive the entire equity in the former matrimonial home, leaving the husband with just his inheritance.

More realistically, the husband, accepting that the wife would need more than £165,000 to obtain suitable accommodation, proposed that the wife receive a total of £235,000 (i.e. her half share of the former matrimonial home, plus a lump sum of £70,000 from his inheritance), plus half of one of his pensions. Of that £70,000, £36,750 was to compensate the wife for his higher pension provision, and the rest amounted to about 11% of the non-matrimonial assets.

The judge considered the husband’s offer to be fair. Adding £5000 in place of the pension share, he awarded the wife a total of £240,000.

You can read the full judgment in the case here.

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