CA-2024-002730 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1022

The parties’ respective submissions to this court were, in brief summary, as follows.

Mr Williams phrased the “central plank” of the wife’s appeal as being that the judge had asked the wrong questions. The judge’s summary of the issues he had to determine (see paragraph 16 above) omitted a critical step, namely whether the wife had lost her domicile of choice in England. This omission meant that the judge had not properly addressed this issue.

He also submitted that such analysis as there was of this issue in the judgment was flawed both legally and factually. The judge had failed to conduct the required “global evaluation”. Looking at the history after September 2019, Mr Williams submitted that the judge had failed to include a material factor in his analysis, namely that the wife had returned to live in England in October 2022 and had remained living here with the children thereafter. This provided, he submitted, strong support for her case that she had not lost the relevant intention when she left England in September 2019 or at any time thereafter. He also relied on the fact that the family’s departure from England was, on the wife’s case and as the judge accepted, not intended to be permanent and on the fact that, as again was accepted by the judge, the parties did not intend to make their permanent home in Mauritius or Singapore. There was, he submitted, a clear intention to return.

Mr Williams submitted that, on any reasonable analysis of the evidence, if the judge had asked the right question, he would have concluded that the wife had not lost her domicile of choice in England. The wife had not lost the necessary intention.

The husband, in clear and concise submissions, argued that the judge properly applied the relevant legal principles and reached a decision which was open to him on the evidence. He submitted that the judge had correctly found that the wife had lost her domicile of choice in England when the family left for Mauritius in 2019. The judge had been entitled to reject the wife’s “claims that she never intended to leave England permanently”. The family had left England with no planned return date; they had sold all their substantial assets in England and had maintained no professional or personal ties with England; and they had lived in Mauritius for three years.

The husband submitted that the wife’s appeal was, “at its heart”, a factual disagreement with the judge’s conclusions dressed up as raising legal issues. He repeated that the judge had addressed the issue of abandonment properly and thoroughly. The judge had applied the correct legal test, had asked the right question and did not make any error of law. He also submitted that the wife bore the burden of proving that her domicile of choice in England persisted and that she had failed to do so. Her domicile of origin, therefore, revived when she was in Mauritius.