Supervening event

B v B [2007] All ER (D) 404 (Oct)

In divorce proceedings, a financial agreement was embodied in a consent order made in 2006. For the purposes of the order, the market value of the former matrimonial home was taken to be £1.25m. The order provided that the husband was to pay the wife a lump sum of £360,000, and if he failed to obtain a further mortgage by 30 April the property should be sold, the husband having the conduct of the sale. On 13 February the husband’s mortgage application was rejected and he informed the wife that the property would be sold, although he did not specify the asking price. Between mid-February and mid-April, the husband spent some £60,000 on the property to put it in an attractive state for sale. The property was in fact sold in May for £1.6m. Was the increase in value a new and supervening event since the making of the consent order, which meant that if leave to appeal out of time were to be granted, the appeal would be certain or very likely to succeed? The answer was ‘no’. The circumstances in which a new and supervening event would invalidate an order were very few and far between and were absent in the present case. The increase in value had been the result of two factors: the rising property market and the husband’s refurbishment of the property. Whether or not those matters had been foreseen, they had certainly been foreseeable. The rising property market was a matter of common knowledge and there was no reason to suppose that, if enquiry had been made of the husband, it would not have made clear his intention to refurbish prior to sale. The principles established in Barder v Barder [1987] 2 All ER 440 applied.