Husband made ‘bad choice due to stroke’

DURBAN: A wealthy Durban pensioner is refusing to hand over half his estate to the woman he married in community of property six years ago, claiming he suffered a stroke seven months before the wedding and can remember very little about it.

“I was mentally incapable of entering into any agreement, nor capable of appreciating the consequences of a marriage in community of property,” the 72year-old former businessman claimed in documents filed in the high court in Durban in predivorce hearing proceedings.

The couple, who cannot be named, apparently lived together for a couple of years before marrying in 2009, a second marriage for both of them. Two years later, in 2011, the woman filed for divorce, saying she was being physically and emotionally abused, and had been evicted from the marital bedroom.

While she sought an order appointing a liquidator to probe her husband’s financial affairs to split the estate, he opposed this and countered her claim with an application to have their marriage declared “null and void”.

He also alleges the marriage was never consummated, which she denies.