Husband claims court stops him issuing Get
A HUSBAND is fighting a court order which he claims could keep him chained to his estranged wife forever.
Property millionaire Alan Moher, 54, says he is being discriminated against because of his inability to grant her a Get.
The couple, who wed in 1995 and have three children, split up in 2016 after 21 years together and have since been waging a “very acrimonious” fight over money.
Mrs Moher was handed a £1.6m lump sum by a judge last year. Her husband, who owns a string of rental properties, was also ordered to pay £1,850 a month maintenance until he grants her a get.
Appealing, he now says that the maintenance order has placed him in a Catch-22 situation whereby he is prevented from giving her a valid religious divorce and will remain trapped into paying maintenance indefinitely.
Her lawyers insist there is “no good reason for the husband to withhold the Get” and that any problems are “of the husband’s own making”.
Judge Bernard Wallwork, at the Family Court in Manchester, made the interim maintenance order in November last year. He told Mr Moher, of Singleton Road, Salford, that the marriage — and his obligation to pay maintenance — would end in a “clean break” as soon as he presented the Get to his Manchester Family Court
ex, having paid her the lump sum.
But Brent Molyneux QC, for the husband, told the Appeal Court that the wording of Judge Wallwork’s order means any Get presented would not be accepted as valid by the Jewish religious authorities, leaving him in a no-win situation. “The phraseology of the order prevents the husband from issuing a Get,” he said. “It is something which has to be given freely, after financial ties between the parties have come to an end. The imposition of a financial sanction on a party, in a bid to force them to grant a Get, invalidates the Get under religious law. The husband is thus left in a position where, due to the element of compulsion placed on him by the order of the court, he is unable to grant a valid Get.”
Claiming that the maintenance order was discriminatory, he told the court: “It is wrong for the wife to receive a financial benefit and the husband a financial penalty by virtue of their religious beliefs. The wife would be recovering twice...It is wrong to impose a financial sanction on the husband in an effort to compel him to grant the wife a Get,” he concluded.
However Sally Harrison QC, for Mrs Moher, said Judge Wallwork had been right to force the husband’s hand with regard to ending their Jewish marriage. “As the judge made clear, the order would be discharged once the Get was given and there was no good reason for the husband to withhold the Get,” she went on.
“The husband was invited to give the standard undertaking in relation to the Get. He declined to do so. In such circumstances, it was open to the court to consider how to enforce compliance.
“Any difficulty would be of the husband’s own making.”
Appeal judges, Lady Justice King, Lady Justice Rose and Lord Justice Moylan reserved their decision on the case at the end of a day-long hearing. It will now be delivered at a later date, yet to be set.