Don’t expect same quality of life, judge tells divorcee
Court rejects ex-wife’s demand for more money to buy a better house
DIVORCEES do not automatically have the right to the lifestyle they were accustomed to in marriage, a Court of Appeal judge has said as he rejected an ex-wife’s plea to increase her settlement.
Katriona MacFarlane claimed that she had not been awarded enough to buy a home similar to the £1 million country cottage she had shared with Dr James MacFarlane, 74.
Mrs MacFarlane, 58, was working as an acting headteacher when she met Dr MacFarlane, a semi-retired GP, in 2003.
She sold her own home to buy his daughter’s half share of his house in Darley Dale, Derbys, and claimed she gave up her “promising” career when her new husband promised he would “look after” them both.
However, in 2013 Dr MacFarlane told her that he wanted to split up.
In an initial divorce hearing in 2015, Judge Mark Rogers said Mrs MacFarlane should receive half the proceeds of the sale of the house, plus a £140,000 lump sum.
At the Court of Appeal, her barrister, Paul Isaacs, argued she had lived in a £650,000 home before the marriage and was seeking a housing fund of £700,000 in her divorce settlement. “Her case was, ‘why should I be relegated to a house that’s far inferior to that which I lived in during the marriage and that which I had before the marriage?’” he said.
Mrs MacFarlane also claimed she was owed compensation for “abandoning” her teaching career to be “looked after” by the millionaire. Had she not given up full-time work, she would now be earning up to £105,000-a-year but instead was working as a supply teacher, Mr Isaacs claimed.
Yesterday, Mr Justice Moylan rejected her claims. Referring to Judge Rogers’s ruling, he said: “The judge was correct when he said the previous standard of living is a guide, but not completely determinative.”
Mr Justice Moylan also said Judge Rogers had been right to refuse Mrs MacFarlane compensation for giving up her job as the decision was a joint one and the evidence of what she would be earning now if she had stayed in her job was “unclear”.
Speaking after the hearing, Dr MacFarlane’s solicitor said the decision suggested divorcees using a compensation argument in their claim may now find it more difficult to succeed.
John Hooper said: “This is yet another example of the judiciary taking an increasingly pragmatic approach towards resolving these types of problems.”