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	England and Wales Family Court Decisions (other Judges)
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Family Court Decisions (other Judges) >> AP v RP [2025] EWFC 98 (B) (07 January 2025) URL: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/OJ/2025/98.html Cite as: [2025] EWFC 98 (B)

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IN THE FAMILY COURT AT READING
IN THE MATTER OF THE MATRIMONIAL CAUSES ACT 1973

		7 January 2025

The draft judgment was sent to the parties or their representatives by email on 20 November 2024. The approved judgment was handed down at a remote hearing at 9.30 a.m. on 7 January 2025 and thereafter by circulation by email. .............................

Introduction and background

1. The parties are AP and RP. They are originally from India.
2. They are first cousins and have known one another since childhood. They were married in February 2003. Shortly thereafter the husband came to the United Kingdom to pursue a masters in IT. The wife joined him in the UK in December 2003 with their daughter, A, now 21. As well as A, the parties have two sons, B, who will turn 18 in January, and C, 13.
3. The husband set up his company ('Company X') in 2009. He asked the wife to be the sole director. He said this was due to visa restrictions that prevented him from taking that role. He was appointed company secretary. In fact she played no part at all in the running or management of Company X, save that occasionally she would, at the husband's behest, take cheques signed by him to the bank to be cashed. She did not have access to the bank accounts, or a company credit card.
4. On 24 November 2018 the wife discovered that the husband had been having a relationship outside the marriage. The husband left the family home in [redacted] and travelled to India.
5. Over the next year or so it became apparent that the husband did not intend to return permanently to the UK. It is fair to note that during the covid pandemic in 2020 he was restricted in his ability to travel.
6. In or around December 2021, the wife was visited at her home by enforcement officers who told her that she (as director of Company X) owed £351,413 to HMRC, as no tax had been declared in respect of the company. She says the husband refused to help and told the wife the debt was her responsibility.
7. The company went into liquidation on 25 May 2022.
8. The husband petitioned for divorce on 12 May 2023.
9. The conditional order for divorce was pronounced on 23 November 2023.
10. On 16 October 2024 the wife became aware that she was party to a claim by a liquidator against Company X in respect of an unpaid fine of £263,625 imposed by the regulator for failure to comply with the relevant code for providing phone-paid services. The debt is the subject of bankruptcy proceedings in the High Court. The wife has attended ten hearings so far.
11. There is a further, and separate, claim from the liquidators, for breach of fiduciary duty in respect of alleged transactions at an undervalue. It is alleged that between 1 January 2019 and 11 January 2021, the company made various payments totalling £764,856 for benefit of the director and secretary, and which did not constitute legitimate company expenditure. The total claim is £1,028,481.
12. The wife had no knowledge of the failure to pay tax, of the fine imposed by the regulator, nor did she receive any of the monies drawn from the company from 2019 onwards. The husband has had the use of £764,856, but the wife is now being held liable to repay that sum, as well as the unpaid fine.
13. The liquidators have made an offer to the wife to settle the claim against her for payment of £330,000.
14. The parties jointly own the family home, in which the wife and children have continued to live since the parties' separation. In addition, they jointly own five properties which are let out to tenants. There is a further rental property in the wife's sole name. Both parties own land in India.
15. Since separation the husband has lived predominantly in India, with his new partner. Within the bundle there is a certificate of marriage. He told me in evidence he is not married, but has not challenged the existence of the marriage certificate, nor provided any explanation for how the certificate came into existence if he did not enter into a marriage.

The proceedings

16. The wife made her application for financial remedies on 8 September 2023.
17. At the first appointment on 14 December 2023, the parties agreed directions, including an agreement that one of their jointly owned properties (property A) would be sold, and the proceeds of sale used to discharge the debt to HMRC, which is the subject of the bankruptcy proceedings.
18. The husband has failed to comply with the directions. He failed to co-operate with the sale of property A, by refusing to agree the sale price. The wife then applied for a declaration that she could take to the bankruptcy proceedings. At FDR DJ Harrison set the sale price as the best price reasonably attainable, and ordered the husband to pay costs of £2,000.
19. Subsequently, the husband broke into the property, and changed the locks. The original buyer pulled out, and the husband refused to vacate the property to allow other potential buyers to view it. The wife made a further application to the Court for enforcement of the order for sale and for vacant possession. That application was heard on 19 September 2024 when the husband claimed to the Court that he was living there, and without it would be homeless. The application was adjourned to the final hearing. The wife since discovered the husband had once again let out the property to tenants.
20. Because the husband had not complied with directions, the FDR was not effective.
21. The husband did not comply with the further directions made at the FDR, on 11 April 2024. At that point he had not served any evidence other than his Form E. On 13 November 2024, following receipt of the trial bundle, the husband emailed a position statement and responses to questionnaires (which had been due on 25 April 2024), together with selected documents. I have read the position statement. It is not signed by a statement of truth, and is not treated by the Court as a statement of evidence. It does not address the section 25 factors. I gave permission for the husband to admit the responses to questionnaires in evidence. I refused permission for him to admit any of the other documents that he put forward. There was no information as to the source of the documents. The wife and her team had not had the opportunity to review and analyse the documents to discover whether they were reliable, whether they presented a complete picture, nor could they have any opportunity to make enquiries to test or challenge the evidence.
22. I heard brief evidence from each of the parties, both of them confirming the contents of their Form Es and responses to questionnaires, and the wife then confirming the contents of her section 25 statement and a conduct statement. Through me, the husband put some brief questions in cross-examination to the wife. I have considered the contents of the bundle, which apart from the applications and orders, contains documents almost entirely generated by the wife, including her statements, property valuation reports, and an accountancy report on the issue of capital gains tax.
23. I heard submissions from both parties, and reserved judgment.

The law

24. In WC v HC [2022] EWFC 22, Peel J, lead judge of the national Financial Remedies Court, encapsulated the law which I am to apply at paragraph 21 of his judgment. I gratefully repeat and adopt his summary, as follows.
25. As a matter of practice, the court will usually embark on a two-stage exercise, (i) computation and (ii) distribution; Charman v Charman [2007] EWCA Civ 503.
26. The objective of the court is to achieve an outcome which ought to be "as fair as possible in all the circumstances"; per Lord Nicholls at 983H in White v White [2000] 2 FLR 981.
27. There is no place for discrimination between the parties to the marriage and their respective roles; White v White. Per Baroness Hale at para 146:

It had already been made clear in White v White [2001] 1 AC 596 that domestic and financial contributions should be treated equally. Section 25(2)(f) of the 1973 Act does not refer to the contributions which each has made to the parties' accumulated wealth, but to the contributions they have made (and will continue to make) to the welfare of the family. Each should be seen as doing their best in their own sphere. Only if there is such a disparity in their respective contributions to the welfare of the family that it would be inequitable to disregard it should this be taken into account in determining their shares.

28. In an evaluation of fairness, the court is required to have regard to the s25 criteria, first consideration being given to any child of the family.
29. S25A is a powerful encouragement towards a clean break, as explained by Baroness Hale at [133] of Miller v Miller; McFarlane v McFarlane [2006] 1 FLR 1186.
30. The three essential principles at play are needs, compensation and sharing; Miller; McFarlane.
31. In the vast majority of cases the enquiry will begin and end with the parties' needs. It is only in those cases where there is a surplus of assets over needs that the sharing principle is engaged.
32. Pursuant to the sharing principle, (i) the parties ordinarily are entitled to an equal division of the marital assets and (ii) non-marital assets are ordinarily to be retained by the party to whom they belong absent good reason to the contrary; Scatliffe v Scatliffe [2017] 2 FLR 933 at [25]. In practice, needs will generally be the only justification for a spouse pursuing a claim against non-marital assets. As was famously pointed out by Wilson LJ in K v L [2011] 2 FLR 980 at [22] there was at that time no reported case in which the applicant had secured an award against non-matrimonial assets in excess of her needs.

The evidence

33. The statements that the wife has made to the Court set out a clear chronology of events, and are supported by contemporaneous documentary evidence. When giving her evidence the wife had a clear recollection of significant matters. She gave explanations which were consistent with what she had said in her written evidence and what is seen in the paperwork.
34. I found her to be a reliable, honest and accurate witness, who was doing her best to assist the Court.
35. The husband has not managed to provide the Court with evidence either that substantiates the assertions that he made at the final hearing, nor to challenge the wife's evidence.
36. For these reasons the findings I make below therefore are based on the evidence submitted to the Court by the wife, which I found to be comprehensive, clear and reliable.
37. The husband was mostly concerned with not having received his share of income from the rental properties since 2020. However, he overlooked that he had not made contributions to the mortgages or running costs of the rental properties, nor has he been paying interim maintenance towards the wife for her or the children, nor has he made any payments towards the mortgage on the family home since 2021.

Section 25 factors

(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, including in the case of earning capacity any increase in that capacity which it would in the opinion of the court be reasonable to expect a party to the marriage to take steps to acquire.

38. The wife has obtained expert valuation in respect of the parties' property portfolios in the UK and in India. The husband pointed out a discrepancy between the expert valuations of his land in India and the figures given by the Indian courts, which are currently seized of an application that prevents the husband from disposing of any of the properties before the proceedings in this jurisdiction have concluded.
39. I accept the wife's evidence that the valuations given by the court in India were a minimum estimate price set by the government for sale, which is different from the market valuation given by the expert. The husband has not produced any evidence to challenge the expert figures, nor if he does not accept the figures, given any reason to doubt the methodology or conclusions reached.
40. I accept the expert valuations in respect of all the properties. A summary of the properties owned by the parties is set out in the table below.

Property	Wife	Husband	Joint	All assets
Family home Gross value Less mortgage Costs of sale Net			£925,000 (£285,558) (£16,188) £623,254	£623,254
Property A Gross value Less mortgage Costs of sale Less CGT Net			£718,000 £0 (£12,565) (£33,120) £672,315	£672,315
Property B Gross value Less mortgage Costs of sale Less CGT Net			£525,000 £0 (£9,188) (£26,400) £489,412	£489,412
Property C Gross value Less mortgage Costs of sale Less CGT Net			£425,000 (£282,317) (£7,438) (£8,400) £126,845	£126,845
Property D Gross value Less mortgage Costs of sale Less CGT Net			£410,000 (£204,476) (£7,175) (£14,880) £183,469	£183,469
Property E Gross value Less mortgage Costs of sale Less CGT Net			£165,000 (£59,127) (£2,888) (£1,200) £101,785	£101,785
Property F Gross value Less mortgage Costs of sale Less CGT Net	£425,000 (£206,426) (£7,438) (£2,400) £208,736			£208,736
Land in India Gross value Less mortgage Costs of sale Less CGT Net	£78,154 £0 (£1,368) (£6,503) £70,283			£70,283
Land in India Gross value Less mortgage Costs of sale Less CGT Net		£935,041 £0 (£16,363) (£179,110) £739,568		£739,568
Total	£279,019	£739,568	£2,197,080	£3,215,667

41. The wife has £7,644 in her bank accounts. The husband has not disclosed bank statements, nor any other evidence of his income. In his Form E he stated he had four bank accounts, but was overdrawn by £1,013. Again he has not disclosed evidence to support this.
42. The wife does not have any stocks, shares or other investments. The husband stated in his Form E that he had an investment account in India containing £75,000, but he has not disclosed any evidence about this.
43. The wife has furniture, jewellery and other chattels to the value of £30,540. This figure comes from the valuation report from Kaushal jewellers dated 9 November 2024.
44. The husband stated in his Form E that he owned luxury watches to the value of £47,300, but again, has not provided an independent valuation to substantiate this, despite having been ordered to do so by the Court.

Husband: undisclosed assets and income

45. The wife has set out in her evidence the reasons that she believes the husband has further substantial assets that he has failed to disclose to her or to the Court.
46. Transactions on the husband's bank accounts from 24 November 2022 to 12 November 2023 show credits of over £100,000 from what appears to be a trading account based named ZB. Screenshots from a phone suggest that he has a portfolio of stock investments in rupees. There is no date and it is not clear whether these three screen shots relate to three different investment funds or show the same one at different points. The third screen shot records that 10102,453 rupees have been invested (£94,711) and puts current value at 72,22,805 rupees (£67,717). The other two screenshots record funds of 216,3155 rupees (£20,280) and 91,063,381 (£853,740).
47. In case of double counting, I will use the single highest figure of £853,740.
48. The husband has not explained to the wife or to the court what investment funds these screenshot summaries relate to.
49. The wife believes that the husband owns another residential property in India, and has put in evidence a printout from eGov, showing the property was registered on 22 April 2019, and that the husband is its registered owner. It is stated to have a capital value of 3,057,600 rupees (£28,666).
50. The wife has put in evidence a deed of sale from February 2020, wherein the husband and his new partner DP are described as the purchasers of a flat in Mumbai for 83,00,000 (£77,819). His bank statements show payments to the managing agent named in the deed of sale. The husband was asked about this in the questionnaire, but has not given any satisfactory explanation about it. The answers he has given in the document submitted to the court the week before the hearing are general or evasive, and do not go anywhere near to providing satisfactory answers to the questions raised.
51. The wife has put in evidence to show that the husband owns a company in India incorporated on 21 July 2020. He and his new wife are named as directors of the company with the registered address of the business being the address of the property purchased in Mumbai. The husband has not disclosed any information about this business or its finances.
52. The wife has reason to believe that the husband has substantial foreign assets abroad. On 30 October 2024 the liquidators' solicitors wrote to the wife's solicitors informing them of the outcome of some of their investigations.
53. The regulated premium rate phone service run by Company X generated significant revenue. They do not have figures going back to 2011, but from late 2015/early 2016 to May 2020 the company received approximately £2,950,000 revenue from its premium rate service.
54. The wife accepts that they purchased five rental properties during this period and recognises that they may well have been funded by revenue from Company X. She therefore deducts a sum of £950,000, representing the deposits paid on the rental properties. The amount of 'lost' money is put at £2,00,000. The wife believes that the husband diverted these funds to his business investments in Dubai and India. In my calculations below, I have used this sum, but I have not put in the additional £764,856 the liquidators believe the husband has taken from the company for his own use, because I understand those to be drawings from the revenue collected, not further revenue.
55. The Phonepaid Services Authority (PSA) Code Adjudication Tribunal made a number of decisions relating to the husband and his business between 2020 and 2021. In December 2020 the husband was prohibited from involvement in UK premium rate services for 5 years.
56. The husband was a 50% shareholder in another company registered in a free trade zone in the UAE in 2017 ('the UAE company'). This company also became subject to PSA Tribunal proceedings. The liquidators have little information about its activities outside the UK, but it ran a regulated premium rate service within the UK:

'The September 2021 PSA Tribunal decision against the UAE company refers to revenue of £992,170.55. We suspect that figure is not the entirety of the revenue generated by the UAE company premium rate service in the UK. We believe it will be the approximate revenue figure up to the point when third parties provided PSA with the relevant data. There is no indication in the Tribunal decision against the UAE company that the service itself was suspended between the PSA investigation commencing and the PSA tribunal imposing the fine on the UAE company and prohibiting it (and its service) in the UK. Accordingly, our inference is that the revenue will have been higher than £992,170.55.

57. The liquidators say they believe the UAE company will have 'enjoyed a high rate of gross profitability over a period of 3 years or more'. The company was fined £1.25 million by the PSA Tribunal in September 2021. No part of this sum has been paid. The liquidators conclude that much of the surplus revenue is likely to have gone to the husband.
58. The husband is believed to be the sole shareholder in another company based in Dubai ('the Dubai company'). On 18 December 2017 the sales register showed income of £169,503 over a five month period.
59. The husband is believed to be a 55% shareholder in a third company, but no financial information is available.
60. The wife believes that the husband is earning and has the capacity to earn substantial income from his undisclosed business interests and assets.
61. He has said to the court that he is unemployed and in financial difficulties. However, he did disclose some bank statements from 24 November 2022 to 10 November 2023 which showed credits of £339,231. The statements also show that the husband has transferred £95,589 to his new wife in that time. He has not explained who made those credits and for what reason. He has not given any convincing explanation to the Court about the source of his income or the reason that he is no longer able to work.
62. It would appear that he is also now receiving rent from Property A.
63. The husband has had ample opportunity to provide evidence that would enable the court to come to a clear view as to the extent of his assets and their value. As it is, he has not provided any information that would contradict the position as it seems to be from the few documents the wife has managed to find.
64. I find that the reason the husband has deliberately failed to give full answers to the wife's questionnaire, and has not filed a section 25 statement, or provided full disclosure about his financial affairs, is that he wishes to conceal from the Court his true financial position. I find the reason he has done this is that he has in fact got substantial assets and resources available to him that he does not wish to share with the wife upon their divorce.
65. The husband may complain that the court is proceeding on a false understanding of his financial situation, but if that is the case, he has only himself to blame, for hiding the true picture from the court, and for failing to provide explanation despite being repeatedly asked to do so.
66. I find that the husband does have substantial assets, business interests and income which should be taken into account when considering the division of assets.
67. As a result of the husband's non-disclosure, I cannot put an accurate figure on his assets. I acknowledge that figures disclosing gross revenue collected from his businesses some years ago are not reliable evidence of his current assets. However, at the same time there is clear evidence of the husband having received substantial sums into his bank accounts, of investing monies into other businesses and property, and of evading tax and penalties levied upon him.
68. Doing the best I can with the evidence that has been put before the court, which has not been challenged by the husband, I find that he has in his possession, or has had in his possession funds which should be added back into the pot of matrimonial assets, to ensure fairness. Given the evidence to which I have been referred, I consider this to be a conservative estimate.
69. I make findings that the husband's assets include the following:

Undisclosed shareholdings (taken from the screenshots but to avoid double counting, using the single highest figure)	£853,740
Missing money from Company X (after deduction for monies spent on deposits for rental properties). Assumption is that monies have been reinvested elsewhere or dissipated.	£2,000,000
The UAE company income (50% shareholding, so half of £992,170.55 funds found to have been received as a minimum by liquidators)	£496,085
Property owned in Mumbai jointly with new wife (no credit for her share in ownership because evidence of matrimonial funds diverted to her)	£77,819

Wife's income

70. The wife has disclosed a complete set of bank statements which show each of the rental payments received, payments out for mortgage and other property related expenses and all personal expenditure. She receives approximately £40,000 a year in total from rental income, supplemented by child tax credits of £1,080 a year.
71. She has recently started renting a room in the family home to a tenant for £850 a month.
72. Apart from working in a grocery store in the early years of her marriage, and more recently having to take over the parties' rental business because the husband stopped paying the mortgages on all the properties, she has never worked. Both her two sons have additional and complex needs and require her to be available to them as their full-time carer. She cannot reasonably increase her income by going out to work.

Pensions

73. Neither party has a pension.

Liabilities

74. The husband has not disclosed any evidence about his liabilities. In his Form E he said he had credit card debts and loans amounting to £43,000, but I have no way of establishing whether that figure is correct.
75. The husband is potentially liable to the liquidators for the sums claimed by them in the litigation and to HMRC. However, as the wife was the sole director of the company, I understand them to be pursuing her alone and not the husband. So I do not allow for a current liability against the husband's account on that basis.
76. There is evidence that a penalty of £1.2 million was levied against the UAE company, which has not been paid. However, I have no evidence of any steps currently being taken against the husband in respect of enforcement, and so do not take it into account at present.
77. Again, if this is not the correct picture, the husband has only himself to blame for his failure to disclose. On the evidence that I have, I do not attribute any liabilities to the husband.
78. The large part of the wife's liabilities are those arising out of her directorship of the husband's company. The full list is as follows:

- HMRC debt (increased since W first alerted to it):	£630,000
- Credit cards	£9,358
- Energy bill	£3,531
- Legal fees	£108,000
- Liquidator's claim of £1,028,481 but taken at figure of settlement sum liquidator has indicated will take to settle Wife's claim:	£330,000
- Loan from family/friends	£60,000
Total:	£1,140,889

(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.

Housing

79. The wife's hope is to stay living in the former matrimonial home.
80. The wife has provided property particulars for four bedroom properties close to C's school, which are on the market for between £800,000 and £925,000. A is at university but returns for the holidays and will likely do so once she has graduated.
81. The wife cannot raise a mortgage because of the HMRC debt in her name, the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings and the fact that her income is made up of rental payments.
82. In his Form E the husband claims a capital need of £1,000,000 to buy a new property. However, he has not provided evidence of property particulars for himself or for the wife. Since he left the marriage in 2018, he has been living in India with his new wife in a flat they apparently own together. The children are not spending time with him at the moment.
83. He has not put forward any evidence of a need for a mortgage nor whether he would be able to apply for one.
84. In the circumstances, the husband has not evidenced the need for a property within the UK.

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

85. During the marriage the parties had a good standard of living. Their daughter went to private school. They both drove expensive cars and lived in a four bedroom house with a garden which they owned. They took holidays abroad. They were able to invest in five more rental properties which generated further income for them, and whose value has increased substantially over time.

d) the age of each party to the marriage and the duration of the marriage.

86. The husband is 44, the wife is 42. The marriage sustained for 15 years and nine months until separation. It was a further four and a half years before the application for a divorce was submitted.

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

87. The husband has asserted in his position statement and answer to questionnaires that he has suffered from depression, but this is a self-report, there is no expert evidence to tell me that he is suffering from a physical or mental disability that would be relevant to my assessment.

f) the contributions which each of the parties has made or is likely in the foreseeable future to make to the welfare of the family, including any contribution by looking after the home or caring for the family.

88. It is not the work of the court to carry out an account of all the contributions made during the marriage; the Court works on the basis that each party gave what they could to the best of their abilities at the time.
89. In the particular circumstances of this case, a stark change happened after the husband left the marriage in 2018.
90. In the early years of the marriage the wife stayed home with the children while the husband went out to the work. When the children were older she contributed financially by working in a supermarket. After 2018, her expectation was that the husband would return to her and the children. He was still in contact with her and her expectation was that he would continue to manage all the family finances for the good of the family. In the event, in or around 2020 he stopped making any financial contribution. Since then the wife paid for the mortgages and other expenses relating to all the properties they owned. She paid £250,000 for unfinished renovation works on property A, and had to repay a £200,000 bridging loan that the husband had taken out on property A, leaving it mortgage fee. She paid £9,000 towards the HMRC debt. She has been sole carer of the children since November 2018.
91. In the last five years, the husband has abdicated responsibility for the wife, their children and their shared properties.

g) the conduct of each of the parties, if that conduct is such that it would be in the opinion of the court inequitable to disregard it.

92. I have considered the wife's statement on conduct, and in the particular circumstances of this case, I find that the husband's behaviour towards her and their children has been such that it would be inequitable to disregard it.
93. He manipulated the wife so that she would become personally liable for the financial consequences of his failure to pay tax, and of failing to account for the companies' profits and cash resources, leading to the actions against the company. Within the litigation he has failed to give full and frank disclosure. The information he has provided has raised more questions than it answered. He has not in any meaningful way addressed the issues raised in the evidence put forward by the wife.
94. His actions have led directly to the wife being embroiled in a number of sets of litigation and having to attend repeated hearings. She has had to become involved in extensive negotiations with HMRC and attended ten hearings so far. She has had the threat of bankruptcy hanging over her for the past four years. She has become exposed to the other proceedings brought by the liquidator. Where the husband could have co-operated to enable the sale of property A to enable the HMRC debt to be discharged, he has acted obstructively and selfishly, and has caused the wife more stress, wasted time and expense, because she has had to return to court time and again to get orders to enforce an agreement that he originally made and then changed his mind about.

Conclusions

95. I must come to a conclusion that takes the section 25 factors that are relevant into account and to strive to achieve a result that is fair.
96. Having regard to the section 25 factors, and having regard also to my obligation to seek to achieve a clean break if possible, I find that the proposal put forward by the wife is fair.
97. The priority for her must be to settle the claims against her, which I find have come about directly as a result of the husband's actions in making her the director of the company, and, post-separation, giving her none of the benefit of its income stream, but instead exposing her to enormous liabilities. Where he could have intervened at an earlier stage to extinguish the debt, he has in fact offered no help at all, with the consequence that the debts have spiralled.
98. She and the children should be allowed to remain in the family home.
99. The husband has not paid any maintenance to the wife for her or for the children. Given his conduct, he cannot be relied upon to pay that in the future. There are sufficient assets for her maintenance claims to be capitalised.
100. On my findings, the husband does have significant assets that he has not disclosed within these proceedings, but will enable him to continue to live with his partner, and to fund the lifestyle he chooses to have.
101. The wife proposes that all the UK properties be retained or transferred into her name. The net effect of that would be as follows:

Property	Wife	Husband	All assets
Family home	£623,254		£623,254
Property A	£672,315		£672,315
Property B	£489,412		£489,412
Property C	£126,845		£126,845
Property D	£183,469		£183,469
Property E	£101,785		£101,785
Property F	£208,736		£208,736
Land in India (W)	£70,283		£70,283
Land in India (H)		£739,568	£739,568
A: Sub-total real property	£2,476,099	£739,568	£3,215,667
Bank accounts	£7,644	(£1013)	£6,631
Jewellery/watches/chattels	£30,540	£47,300	£77,840
Undisclosed shareholdings		£853,740	£853,740
Missing money from company (less value of deposits on rental properties)		£2,000,000	£2,000,000
UAE company income (50%)		£496,085	£496,085
Mumbai property		£77,819	£77,819
B: Sub-total other property	£38,184	£3,473,931	£3,512,115
Total (A + B)	£2,514,283	£4,213,499	£6,727,782
C: Liabilities	(£1,140,889)		(£1,140,889)
Grand total (A + B – C)	£1373,394	£4,213,499	£5,586,893
Percentage split	24.5%	75.5%

102. The percentage split favours the husband significantly. However, I consider this is the outcome that would achieve fairness in the circumstances of this case. It leaves the wife with assets that are (largely) within this jurisdiction, so that she would not have to try and enforce orders against the husband abroad. It would provide the wife with security, income, the ability to discharge her liabilities, to meet hers and the children's needs, and to become financially independent.
103. Given the difficulties of accurately assessing the husband's assets, as a cross-check, I have looked at the outcome from another perspective. If I consider the apportionment of the parties' respective assets after my final award only taking into account real property, the net effect schedule is as follows:

Asset	Wife	Husband	Total
A: Sub-total real property	£2,476,099	£739,568	£3,215,667
Bank accounts	£7,644	(£1013)	£6,631
Jewellery/watches/chattels	£30,540	£47,300	£77,840
Mumbai property		£77,819	£77,819
B: Sub-total other property	£38,184	£124,106	£162,290
Total (A + B)	£2,514,283	£863,674	£3,377,957
C: Liabilities	(£1,140,889)		(£1,140,889)
Grand total (A + B – C)	£1,373,394	£987,780	£2,237,068
Percentage split	61%	39%

104. For the reasons given within this judgment, I have been satisfied that the husband has diverted substantial assets which properly should have formed part of the pot of matrimonial assets, and thus liable to a sharing claim. However, if I am wrong as to the extent of the monies that the husband has in his possession or that should be added back into the pot, and leave them out of my calculations altogether, I still conclude that an order that awards the wife all the UK properties would be fair in all of the circumstances of the case.
105. That would give her a split of 61% of the property in the wife's favour. I regard that as a fair result. She is raising the children, has no confidence that she will receive maintenance from the husband, and so seeks a clean break now.
106. I have included the wife's outstanding costs in the schedule of her liabilities. The costs relate to the actions by HMRC and the liquidators, to the costs relating to enforcement of the order for sale of property A and to the proceedings for financial remedies, which have been protracted and difficult due to the husband's failure to act openly and honestly and to give full disclosure as he should have done.
107. The husband has acted unreasonably and reprehensibly, and should be required to pay the wife's costs of this litigation, which was driven by his actions in concealing financial information from the wife, from diverting monies elsewhere in an attempt to defeat the wife's claim for financial remedies, and preventing the parties from being in a position to avoid the litigation through meaningful negotiations.

Enforcement

108. The court has made a succession of orders which make the position in respect of property A clear. It is to be sold. At the hearing for handing down of the judgment, the husband agreed to the previous orders being varied so that property A is transferred to the wife forthwith. This means that she can have conduct of the sale or otherwise protect her position in the bankruptcy proceedings without needing to rely upon the husband.
109. At the hearing for handing down judgment the wife gave undertakings, once the judgment and final order have been received, to instruct her solicitors in India forthwith to provide to the husband the title documents for the land he owns in India, and to instruct them to lodge the judgment and orders with the court in India and to request that the restrictions currently attached to the land will be removed.

Her Honour Judge Vincent

Family Court at Reading

Draft judgment sent: 20 November 2024

Judgment handed down: 7 January 2025