The High Court granted a decree of divorce and ordered the sale of an apartment in C. as part of its financial provision for the spouses. The ruling was made on appeal from a Circuit Court order and followed an appeal hearing in November 2012.
The parties, identified in the judgment only as F. and F., married in C. in 2002 and separated in August 2006. They had no children together. The court said they had lived apart for at least four years during the five years before proceedings began, found no reasonable prospect of reconciliation, and was satisfied proper provision existed or would be made.
Their assets included an apartment in C. and a house in T. The house had a mortgage of about €254,330 and was estimated by the court to be worth between €120,000 and €150,000, leaving it in negative equity. The court used €160,000 as a working estimate for the C. apartment. It noted the parties had not obtained professional valuations of either property.
The spouses had signed a separation agreement in March 2007, allocating the C. apartment to the wife and the T. house to the husband. The High Court accepted evidence that they had agreed the outline when they separated and had acted on it. However, it decided the husband needed some capital assistance to move from T. to D. and treated that need as a reason not to give the agreement decisive weight.
The order requires the parties to sell the C. property within six months. After taxes and disposal costs, €30,000 is to go to the husband, with the balance to the wife, regardless of the sale price. The court allowed a reserve price of at least €160,000, subject to further directions. The wife is to appoint the selling agent first; if the property is not sold, the husband may appoint one. If either party refuses to sign sale documents, the County Registrar may be asked to execute them.
The husband must take immediate steps to have the wife removed from the mortgage on the T. property. He may apply for a property transfer order and show the judgment to the mortgagee bank for that purpose. The court also made pension adjustment orders so the wife retains the effective benefit of her pension, barred each spouse from seeking provision from the other’s estate under section 18(10), subject to a stay until the relevant obligations are met, and made no order for maintenance or costs.
The judgment criticised the handling of the appeal, including the absence of property valuations and case management. It said the husband’s request for a share of any sale proceeds above the court’s valuation was not allowed. The order records that the High Court replaced, set aside or affirmed parts of the Circuit Court order as necessary.