Is it true that, under British law, after 25
years of marriage a couple's seperately held assets (for example, if
the wife owns the house and it is in her in her name only, often the
case when widows and widowers marry late in life) their seperate
assets are automatically declared joint property? Please note that I
interested in what the law is concerning this matter in the United
Kingdom only.

Dear jenniblake-ga;

Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to answer your interesting question.

The answer to your question is ?No? - this is a myth. In the United
Kingdom Section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (MCA 73) governs
the equitable distribution of properties in the event of divorce. The
Act stipulates that the following issues are taken into account in the
following order, giving the first the prevalence it obviously
deserves:

"It shall be the duty of the court in deciding whether to exercise its
powers ..... to have regard to all the circumstances of the cases,
first consideration being given to the welfare while a minor of any
child of the family who has not attained the age of eighteen."

Following this, the foremost concern for minor children, the issues
are arranged in this order of legal consideration:

(a) the income, earning capacity, property and other financial
resources which each of the parties to the marriage has or is likely
to have in the foreseeable future;

(b) the financial needs, obligations and responsibilities which each
of the parties to the marriage has or is likely to have in the
foreseeable future;

(c) the standard of living enjoyed by the family before the breakdown
of the marriage;

(d) the age of each party to the marriage and the duration of the marriage; 

(e) any physical or mental disability of either of the parties to the marriage; 

(f) the contributions made by each of the parties to the welfare of
the family, including any contribution made by looking after the home
or caring for the family;

(g) ...the value to either of the parties to the marriage of any
benefit (for example, a pension) which ... (by reason of the divorce)
..that party will lose the chance of acquiring....

MATRIMONIAL CAUSES ACT 1973
http://www.terry.co.uk/matcaus1.html


Note that the duration of the marriage is fifth on the list of
priorities (the one about minor children is actually considered #1 and
this one #5 in descending order). With regard to this issue a court
does take into account the length of the marriage and the
contributions of each party throughout to some degree when determining
property distribution, but this cannot to be used as a legal defense
in, and of, itself. Logically then if a woman owned a house prior to a
25-year marriage with her present husband the court would weigh that
issue when dividing the property. At the same time the court would
also weigh the fact that the husband, who had no claim to the property
prior to the marriage, has since invested 25 years in that home and
his contributions toward its upkeep, maintenance, taxes and so forth
would also be considered not to mention the fact that this has
physically been ?his? home as much as his wife?s for all intents and
purposes. On this very issue, Terry & Co., UK Solicitors excellently
summed up the courts authoritative powers to decide:

?When a marriage is dissolved by a Court the Court has almost
unlimited powers to divide up all the marital assets in whatever way
it sees fit although the Courts in fact make such divisions according
to well understood rules. That is, it is not an arbitrary process but,
equally, it is not one which either party to the marriage can prevent.
It is not possible in the UK to enter into binding pre-nuptial
agreements which determine what is to happen to the marital property
in the event of divorce. The Courts have complete and almost absolute
jurisdiction. What this means is that one party to the marriage can
force a divorce and have the Courts decide how the marital assets
ought to be split up. Short of not getting married in the first place
these consequences cannot be escaped for the overwhelming majority of
husbands and wives.?
TERRY & CO. UK SOLICITORS
http://www.terry.co.uk/men_div.html

So you see, there is clearly no statute that anyone can claim which
will support an argument that a marriage of greater duration means
that all previously acquired assets automatically become the common
property of both parties when the marriage reaches a certain magic
number of years.


Below you will find that I have carefully defined my search strategy
for you in the event that you need to search for more information. By
following the same type of searches that I did you may be able to
enhance the research I have provided even further. I hope you find
that that my research exceeds your expectations. If you have any
questions about my research please post a clarification request prior
to rating the answer. Otherwise, I welcome your rating and your final
comments and I look forward to working with you again in the near
future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.

Best regards;
Tutuzdad ? Google Answers Researcher


INFORMATION SOURCES

PRINCIPLES APPLICABLE IN DIVIDING THE MATRIMONIAL ASSETS
http://www.terry.co.uk/matcaus.html

TERRY & CO. UK SOLICITORS
http://www.terry.co.uk/men_div.html

MATRIMONIAL CAUSES ACT 1973
http://www.terry.co.uk/matcaus1.html


SEARCH STRATEGY


SEARCH ENGINES USED:

Google ://www.google.com




SEARCH TERMS USED:

MARRIAGE LAWS UK

DIVORCE LAWS UK

EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION

COMMON PROPERTY

MATRIMONIAL CAUSES ACT

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Request for Answer Clarification by jenniblake-ga on 24 Mar 2004 14:35 PST

Thank you for your additional comments. My question actually does not
refer to divorce proceedings, but to inheritance.  My mother's will
has left her seperately owned house to my stepfather as a life estate
should she die first(my mother and my father owned the house; five
years after my father died, my mother remarried -- an "old-age"
marriage). Upon my stepfather's death, the property becomes mine,
according to the terms of the will. My mother is still alive, but
mentally incompetent and living in a nursing home. My step-sister is
assuring me that my mother's house is now owned by my stepfather even
though my mother never put it his name and still owns it outright. So
my question is, does my stepfather now automatically enjoy joint
ownership of my mother's house by virtue of their 25-year marriage?
I shall be glad to pay another $15.00 for an answer to my question as amended.
Thank you,
Jennifer

---

Clarification of Answer by tutuzdad-ga on 24 Mar 2004 16:24 PST

You will note that the additional comments are not MINE. They are
someone else's. Unfortunatley, once a question has been rated an the
tip applied no further ammendments can be made to the price of the
question. It is, for all intents and purposes, over.

I recommend you post a new question, which I will be glad to research
for you if I can. You may ask for me specifically in your SUBJECT line
(for Tutuzdad) or you may simply leave it open for any researcher to
answer if you prefer to do that.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

Thank you very much for all your help. You have set my mind at rest (a
family feud is brewing in England with various strange claims being
made, one of them the matter I asked you to clear up for me). I just
want to be prepared!! Again, thank you!

Dear jenniblake,

When a party to a divorce proceeding claims that certain property is
not part of the marital estate, but remains their separate property
apart from the marital estate, the court must evaluate that claim
prior to dividing the marital estate. In some jurisdictions, a court
may invade separate property in order to achieve an equitable
distribution of assets upon divorce, but in most cases where property
is found to be separately held it is not considered in the division of
the marital estate. That is to say, the court must engage in a
two-part analysis: (1) determining which property is part of the
marital estate and which is not, and (2) equitably dividing that
property which is part of the marital estate. The statute described by
tutuzdad speaks to the second part of the analysis.

With specific regard for a marital home, even if the home is titled to
only one of the parties and was owned prior to the parties' marriage,
a trial court may well look at the length of time the parties have
been married and have resided in the home, how any mortgage payments
were paid, how taxes were paid, how the parties paid for repairs or
improvements, and other similar factors to determine if the home
should be included in the marital estate. In a typical common law
jurisdiction (and I make no promises that the U.K. is typical, despite
its being the birthplace of common law) if the parties intentions or
actions evidence that they treated the asset as marital property, or
they intended it to merge into the marital estate, the property can be
properly included in the marital estate despite the manner in which it
is titled.

What you are describing may well be either folk wisdom or a rule of
thumb - that after twenty-five years of marriage, judges will often
treat property which was separately owned at the outset as having
merged into the marital estate. As tutuzdad indicates, there does not
appear to be a statutory basis for this rule, or a statutory mandate
that such a "rule of thumb" be followed. If it is indeed a "rule of
thumb" informally followed by certain courts, there will likely be
some variation in how the rule is interpreted and applied in
determining when and under what conditions the parties once-separate
property becomes part of the marital estate.

Thank you for your additional comments. My question actually does not
refer to divorce proceedings, but to inheritance.  My mother's will
has left her seperately owned house to my stepfather as a life estate
should she die first(my mother and my father owned the house; five
years after my father died, my mother remarried -- an "old-age"
marriage). Upon my stepfather's death, the property becomes mine,
according to the terms of the will. My mother is still alive, but
mentally incompetent and living in a nursing home. My step-sister is
assuring me that my mother's house is now owned by my stepfather even
though my mother never put it in his name and still owns it outright. So
my question is, does my stepfather now automatically enjoy joint
ownership of my mother's house by virtue of their 25-year marriage?
I shall be glad to pay for an answer to my question as amended.
Thank you,
Jennifer

Given that there is a will which evidences your mother's intentions,
and your expression that the property remains titled in her name, I
doubt that the duration of the marriage would of itself void your
mother's express intentions and vest title in her husband. As Dickens
suggests in Bleak House, the laws of estates and probate can be
complicated, and (depending upon the governing law) there can be
circumstances were a legal heir is permitted to "opt against the will"
- a provision usually created by statute to provide a spouse with
sufficient means of support in the event that the other spouse
attempts to disinherit her. It may be worth exploring whether such
laws exist in England and how they would apply to your case. Beyond
that, as a general rule courts will try to give effect to the
intentions of the person who wrote a will (as opposed to, for example,
a step-child's desire to get her finger's into her step-sibling's
inheritance).

If you wish to post a new question on this subject, I'm sure that a
researcher will attempt to answer it for you.