CA-2024-000509 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1055

Both parties are in their early forties. The husband is a UK national who moved to live in Dubai in 2014. He was previously married for a short period of time. There are no children of that marriage. In 2016 when he met the wife, the husband was working as a qualified accountant for PWC and earning £120,000 per annum.

The wife works for her father (‘the father’) in the family business. She has not been married before. She has had the misfortune that for many years, she has suffered from serious mental health problems requiring hospitalisation for significant periods of time.

There was a dispute at trial as to when the parties started to live together. The judge preferred the evidence of the wife and found the date of their cohabitation to be May 2017. Whilst the actual date makes no difference to what is a short childless marriage, the finding against the husband in this regard significantly damaged his credibility in the eyes of the judge.

In December 2017, the parties became engaged. The husband left his role at PWC in January 2018 to work for one of the father’s companies. The arrangement did not work out and the husband left this employment in February 2019. The husband commenced a year-long online trading training programme. This was initially successful, but following the breakdown of his health following the end of the marriage, the business failed and the husband is not currently working.

The parties married on 12 July 2019. By September 2021 the marriage was in difficulties. The wife says it came to an end in April of 2022 and the husband in August 2022 when he moved out of the matrimonial home. The judge made no finding as to the date of final separation, but however one looks at it, the marriage lasted for about three years with the relationship having started in August 2016 and cohabitation in May 2017.

The wife comes from a very wealthy family. Her father is a businessman with an extensive property and business portfolio in the Middle East. The wife owns assets in her sole name worth between £60m and £70m, and earns approximately £650,000 per year, the majority of which is rental income from her property portfolio but which is supplemented by a salary from her father.

At the time of the trial, the husband had, on his case, net assets of approximately £850,000, although £500,000 of this is tied up in the equity of a property shared with his parents.