ABSTRACT
Normally precise ownership of property belonging to a married couple, whether that property is the home itself, chattels used in their home or other property in the nature of an investment, is of no particular interest in divorce, since pursuant to s 24 of the Matrimonial Causes Act (MCA) 1973 the court has a wide power to effect whatever adjustments it perceives to be necessary by making a property transfer order. However, there are occasions when proprietary rights are important, for example, because the parties are not divorcing, so that the s 24 jurisdiction is not being invoked. The jurisdiction will then be that of the Married Women’s Property Act (MWPA) 1882 (s 17 as amended), which is confined to establishing strict property rights, allowing no s 24 discretion. Pursuant to the recent House of Lords decision in White v White [2000] 2 FLR 981, closer attention may also be paid to the ownership of assets even in divorce proceedings, when the s 24 discretion will naturally be used, because of their Lordships’ concern that the judge’s award should (a) proceed from ‘fairness’, and (b) be checked against the yardstick of equality. In White, the husband kept more of the assets which had been accumulated over a long marriage as his family had contributed more to start with and it was in fact Mrs White’s insistence that regardless of the marriage relationship she was also commercially a partner in the parties’ farming business that was at the root of the long litigation history. For further discussion of the impact of White on the law of ancillary relief, see Chapters 12 and 13.
