Alireza v Radwan & Ors

Judgment Approved

LAD Y JUSTICE KING:

This is an appeal against the order of Mrs Justice Roberts dated 4 August 2016 in respect of the Appellant’s (“the wife”) application for financial remedies following the breakdown of her marriage with the First Respondent (“the husband”).

The judge ordered, uncontroversially, payment by the husband to the wife of a lump sum of £2m by way of capitalised maintenance, payments of child maintenance and the children’s on-going educational costs, together with a s um for a replacement motor vehicle.

In addition, and the subject of this appeal, the judge ordered that ongoing provision for housing for the wife (and children during their minority) would be made by giving her a time- limited occupational interest in two flats in South Kensington (the larger of which was the parties’ matrimonial home and principal residence, the smaller of which was used for the housing of domestic staff and guests). The wife’s right to occupy the staff flat was to come to an end in three years’ time and in respect of the principal residence upon either the wife’s remarriage or the death of her father whichever be the sooner.

The issues before the Court of Appeal are:

whether the judge was right in law to regard the wife’s future inheritance from her father as a resource that she was likely to have in the foreseeable future under Section 25(2)(a) Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (“MCA 1973”); and

Whether the judge had been wrong in making an order granting the wife an occupational interest in the former matrimonial home rather than ordering the husband to pay a lump sum to the wife sufficient to enable her to buy a property of her own.

Background

The parties, both of whom are dual nationals of the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, were married in London on 20 May 1999. The husband was then in his late 20s, working in international banking; the wife was 21 years old. The husband has an earning capacity of in excess of £350,000pa. The wife has not worked outside the home and it is agreed between the parties that she has no separate earning capacity of her own.

Both families are, by any ordinary standards, extremely wealthy. The husband asserted that the scale of wealth of the wife’s family is in a wholly different league from that of the husband.

Following the marriage, the parties moved into a three bedroom flat in South Kensington: [an address], (“10 AHM”). The leasehold interest in the property had been purchased in Octobe