Wife v trustee in bankruptcy

Haines v Hill and Anor [2007] EWCA Civ 1284 5 December

The judge sitting in the Chancery Division (see 26/LL p81) had granted a declaration in favour of the respondent trustees in bankruptcy that a transfer of property pursuant to an order in matrimonial proceedings had been a transaction at an undervalue. In ancillary relief proceedings the court had ordered a jointly owned property to be transferred to the wife. Shortly afterwards the husband had become bankrupt and on the trustees’ the judge had found that an applicant for ancillary relief could not give consideration by purporting to compromise claims for such relief by entering into a settlement agreement, and therefore an applicant who succeeded in obtaining a property adjustment order after a contested hearing, which depended on the same exercise of discretion as the court approving a compromise agreement, could be in no better position. The judge on appeal had found that wife had given no consideration, or that any consideration she might have given was not measurable in money or money’s worth, and that the transfer should be set aside.