Lump sum after remarriage

K (formerly G) v G FD TLR 13 February

The marriage was terminated in February 1995. In November 1995 the wife’s claim for a lump sum and secured provision was adjourned generally with liberty to restore because the husband stood to inherit significantly on the deaths of his uncle or father. In August 1997 the wife remarried, but that marriage effectively came to grief during 1999. In 2001 the husband inherited over £2m with the expectation of more to come. It was conceded that the wife’s remarriage did not have the effect of precluding her from pursuing the adjourned claim but it was contended that the remarriage should lead the court to exercise its discretion against her. The judge agreed that there might well be cases where that was the position, but this was not one of them. The parties’ daughters’ impact on the situation changed entirely his perspective of what was fair. They had required their mother’s care and attention which she gave to them fully, notwithstanding her own illness and the particular anxieties and demands caused by the older girl’s dyslexia. Neither the fact of nor any factor deriving from the wife’s defunct second marriage neutralised or negated the value of her contributions so as to make it unfair that the husband should now meet her present needs to a reasonable extent from the resources which were only now available to him.