Transfer of Property out of the Marital Pot

I need some help on the following.

When my wife and I married we each had a property. I sold mine and we lived in my wife's house for a couple of years. The proceeds of my sale were then used to purchase our current home. In the interim my wife's house has been rented. The property was solely in my wife's name.

Unbeknown to me, in February 2016, my wife transferred ownership of her house over to her mother. All rental agreements etc. are now in the mother's name. It is a mortgage free property. The rental is now being used to pay school fees as my salary has vastly reduced since covid.

I will be instigating proceedings very soon. When I have consulted a solicitor, they have advised that the former property could probably not be included in the marital pot without considerable expense and with no guarantee of success although we could use it as leverage.

Would you agree with the above - seems wrong to me. The reasoning is that it was done a number of years ago.

Many thanks!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2022 05:55AM by 007apb.

>>I will be instigating proceedings very soon. When I have consulted a solicitor, they have advised that the former property could probably not be included in the marital pot without considerable expense and with no guarantee of success although we could use it as leverage.

Would you agree with the above - seems wrong to me. The reasoning is that it was done a number of years ago. <<

I would have told you the same.

Not what I wanted to hear, but thanks for confirming Terry.

That is not to say you should simply ignore it. After all, I doubt that your wife's mother paid market value for the property so whether the transaction was in good faith is questionable. What was transferred could no doubt be transferred back just as easily. Unless and until you get to the point of a final hearing at which a judge decides I think you should treat the property as being counted towards your wife's share of the matrimonial assets. If it got as far as a final hearing you have to accept that argument might eventually fail before a judge and probably would for the reasons given to you by your solicitor. That is not to say that up to that point you should not argue the point strongly. I dare say if the situation was reversed and you had transferred the property your wife would be arguing that she ought not to suffer from that. It would be different if the property had been transferred for market value but it seems it was not. Your wife should have to account for that.

Many thanks David - that is really helpful!