The High Court has refused a bid to halt financial relief proceedings brought by Ms A under the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010, finding that both she and Mr B met the Act’s ordinary residence requirement for the year before their relationship ended.
Mr B had asked the court to declare that it could not hear Ms A’s claim and to strike out her proceedings. He argued that neither party was ordinarily resident in Ireland throughout the relevant year, which Ms A said ended in December 2018. The application concerned jurisdiction only; the court was not deciding Ms A’s underlying claim for financial relief.
Section 196(3) requires both cohabitants to have been ordinarily resident in the State throughout the year before their relationship ended. It also requires either one to be domiciled in the State when the application is made or ordinarily resident there throughout the year ending on that date. Mr B’s application put the first requirement in issue, and the court noted that he had framed his case on the basis that neither party met it.
The parties gave conflicting accounts of their lives between December 2017 and December 2018. Mr B said he was mainly based in EU Member State 2 and visited Ireland for family, medical and other personal matters. Ms A said they alternated between homes in Ireland and EU Member State 2, while she also travelled to Non-EU Member State 1 to care for an elderly parent. Evidence from an accountant’s review of bank and credit card transactions suggested Mr B spent about 85 days in Ireland, about 89 days in Non-EU Member State 1, more than 180 days in EU Member State 2 and about eight days elsewhere. The judge described the figures as approximate.
Applying the ordinary residence principles set out in the Court of Appeal’s 2020 decision in *Chubb European Group SE v The Health Insurance Authority*, the judge found the parties had settled and usual places of abode in both Ireland and EU Member State 2. Their residence in each was neither casual nor uncertain. The court said ordinary residence can exist in more than one place at once, and understood the parties’ time in each country as depending on personal, family and medical needs, among other reasons.
The judge also held that living “throughout” the relevant year could include moving between two places of ordinary residence. The court therefore declined both reliefs sought by Mr B. The judgment does not determine the merits of Ms A’s financial relief claim.