A Sydney woman’s attempt to more than double her assets to $31 million in her divorce case has failed spectacularly as she now must pay more than $1.4 million to her husband.
The couple had been fighting over tens of millions in assets, including large estates, luxury care, shares and art, in Australia’s Family Court.
They initially agreed to divide their assets with 53 percent going to the wife, the Daily Telegraph reported.
The deal would have allowed him to keep a mortgage-free home valued at $14 million.
However, the wife was not satisfied and filed an appeal alleging that her husband was hiding $17 million in shares and had “breached his disclosure obligations to a deplorable degree.”
Had his appeal been successful, he could have walked away with about $31 million in assets.
Her assumption about her husband’s wealth turned out to be incorrect when a forensic financial report showed that in less than five years he had lost $10 million in the stock market.
He told the court the real value of his shares was $3 million.
If the wife’s appeal had been successful, she could have walked away with about $31 million in assets.
The court also heard he owed about $2 million in taxes from a year in which he had a gross income of more than $6 million.
The court reassessed the value of all the couple’s assets and the new figure it arrived at was substantially lower.
As a result, the court ruled that the wife would actually have to pay her husband more than $1.4 million.
He may now have to sell his $14 million property in order to make payment within the court-ordered 60 days.
Judge Robert Harper told the court it was “probably neither realistic nor fair and equitable” for her to keep the property.
However, the wife had some rulings in her favor. The court found that her husband had spent excessively when, before the property division was finalized, he spent nearly a million dollars on his new wife’s wedding.
The husband had told the court that it was “reasonable for him to usher in a new chapter in his life with a ‘bit’ of happiness, after ending ‘an acrimonious marriage’.”
But the judge disagreed, saying that spending so much money on the wedding before dividing the assets was far more than he needed to do to “get on with his life.”
The husband was also ordered to repay more than $500,000 in assets he had given to his new wife, including $300,000 in cash and a $200,000 car.