Overseas Chambers of Peter Harris

Overseas Chambers
c/o Addington Chambers
160, Fleet Street,
London EC4A 2DQ,
United Kingdom
https://addingtonchambers.com

Fellow of the European Law Institute Vienna
https://overseaschambers.com/
Barrister at Law - Regulated by
the Bar Standards Board
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The international removal to the UK : the effects on matrimonial property and legal régimes

March 25th 2014

High Net Worth couples are increasingly relocating internationally for tax reasons as much as personal motivations such as wealth protection and family motivations.

 

What rarely crops up on the couple's agenda is the effect of such a move on their underlying property relationships. In the Anglo-American jurisdictions, matrimonial property régimes are not fully understood, and are frequently degraded to the legal status of a "pre-nup". That does no credit to either legal system, as there is frequently a sting in the tail when one system assumes that it applies without taking the other into account. In fact looking at the Globe, the areas where there are matrimonial property régimes in force are the 2/3 majority of the areas influenced by the English, -American and Australian systems.

 

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the issues that frequently follow such moves. One symptom or consequence of such a move can be  that one of the couple becomes alienated in the new jurisdiction. The breakdown of the marriage entails the subsequent international settlement of the property rights between the separating spouses. Where one has taken tax or asset protection precautions such as settling offshore trusts and similar structures, the issues can rapidly become extremely aggressive and expensive.

 

So, before moving to the United Kingdom, those couples who are conscious of their property rights and entitlement need to review that area of their life, and take advice from a lawyer competent in both methodologies as to how to remodulate their matrimonial régime, to ensure that what they intended to be their property relationship is maintained, rather than entirely reviewed and readjusted by a judge in the Family division; operating on entirely different principles..

 

On a broad brush basis, the English Family Division takes "fairness" in divorce proceedings, in what is called ancillary relief as meaning a 50/50 split of all of each spouses' assets, irrespective of the allocation given under their matrimonial property régimes, which despot recent caselaw is still the main principle.  They also look to the maintenance of the weaker spouse's living standards in their assessment of fairness.  This generally means the purchase of a house or flat in the area where the Children are being educated or brought up, and the income necessary to support such a standard fo living

 

These issues have to be very carefully handled, as in some civil law jurisdictions "ordre public" looks very askance upon arrangements for a divorce settlement being included in a matrimonial property régime, preferring that any adjustment on divorce or death take place on a separate liquidation basis.  That is why advice is needed to take effect on the move

 

In short, couples moving from Germany, Russia, Switzerland or France to the United Kingdom or another anglicised jurisdiction need to take advice on their property situation and make adjustments generally before they move.

 

Overseas Chambers, and its founder,  Peter Harris is ideally situated, in Jersey, to address all sides of the question of any move.