Big Money

Dharamshi v Dharamshi ([2001] 1 FLR 736 CA)

The husband’s main asset was his share of the sale of a company, amounting to about £4.5 million, subject to expenses and capital gains tax liability of £1.8 million. The Court of Appeal upheld an order transferring the matrimonial home to the wife, awarding her a lump sum of £1,050,000 and a contingent lump sum representing 25 % of the fruits of a capital gains tax avoidance scheme, the outcome was not yet known. The judge’s approach of giving the wife a substantial fraction of the assets, not directly related to her reasonable needs, had been fully discussed in White v White. The reasonable requirements method had now been rejected, as had the clear distinction made previously between the active and productive work of a wife in the family business and the management at home of a house and children. The wife’s work at home was just as valid as that done in any business.