Can a wife persuade a court to give her a greater share of the family home , registered in their joint names, because her self-employed husband behaved terribly to her , abusing her during their marriage, and concealing cash income, while she worked like a dog to pay off the bills ?
By: דיאנה שאלתיאל•Published on: 10 May, 2022No ! Assuming the couple got married on or after 1.1.74, then, according to the relevant legislation, the 1973 Spouses’ Property Relations’ Act, both spouses have an equal right to property acquired during the course of their marriage, unless it falls into one of the exceptions e.g. gift or inheritance , or they made a written agreement, authorized in court, which excluded a certain asset from the common pool of property. Now, although the court does have discretion to digress from this 50:50 formula where it feels it would be just to do so in exceptional circumstances, it cannot do so where the real estate is registered in joint names, as this indicates the parties’ agreed intention for that property to be jointly owned, and the assumption is in equal shares.