High Court rules ex-wife entitled to nothing after bringing claim over 20 years late
A High Court judge has dismissed a ten million pound financial remedies claim brought more than two decades after a couple divorced. Mr Justice Peel ruled that the woman, who cannot be named, should receive no award after the court found no basis for reopening the agreement reached at the time of the separation. The judgment in LIN v PAR noted that the claim came as a considerable surprise to the ex-husband, who had lived separately from his former spouse for more than twenty years and had no contact with her for around twelve years.
The couple married in the 1990s and lived together for nine years. They had no children. The business in which they held a joint interest fell in value before the divorce. After the marriage ended, the ex-husband went on to build a successful series of companies and is now worth around one hundred million pounds. The judge made clear that his post-divorce success did not create an entitlement for his ex-wife.
Mr Justice Peel found no evidence of undue pressure or material non-disclosure at the time of the original agreement. He said the long delay was a highly relevant factor when assessing the fairness of the new claim. He added that the ex-husband had played no role in the ex-wife’s personal or financial decisions since the divorce and should not be treated as an insurer against choices made long afterwards.
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The court examined how the late claim emerged. The ex-wife was approached in 2022 by a man identified as Mr TP, who became involved in her personal affairs and encouraged her to seek legal advice. Her solicitors, Dawson Cornwell, discovered that although terms had been agreed at the time of the divorce, no final order had been sealed by the court. With TP’s encouragement, she pursued a financial remedies application and alleged that the original agreement should be disregarded because of alleged non-disclosure.
The initial demands sent on her behalf sought ten million pounds, including sums for interim needs and legal costs. Her lawyers pressed for immediate undertakings from the ex-husband and insisted on rapid financial disclosure. Mr Justice Peel described the opening correspondence as hostile and said it set an unfortunate tone for the litigation.
By the time the matter reached trial, the ex-wife had changed legal representation and reduced her claim to approximately two point six three million pounds. She sought money to meet the housing costs of one point five million pounds and to cover outstanding debts of around three hundred and forty thousand pounds.
The ex-husband argued that the appropriate outcome was a drop-hands resolution. He had incurred almost one point four million pounds in legal fees responding to the application and had already contributed approximately three hundred and thirty nine thousand pounds towards the ex-wife’s legal costs. In his judgment, Mr Justice Peel refused the ex-wife’s claim in full, concluding that fairness did not require any award and that responsibility for her present and future needs did not lie with her former husband.