After 41 years, he kept the overseas money and she kept the house

Ms and Mr Hansi married in 1977 and divorced in 2018. Their two children were adults. Both were in their sixties, both had health problems and both were on the aged pension. In Australia they had one asset of any size: their home, worth about $575,000 with a mortgage of $263,000, leaving equity of just over $300,000.

Mr Hansi asked for an equal split. Ms Hansi asked to keep the whole house. She said that he had kept everything the couple once owned overseas, including the proceeds of their former family home there, sold in 2016, and that he had never properly disclosed his bank accounts.

Judge Burchardt preferred the wife's evidence. The judge found that the husband had comprehensively failed to disclose, and had agreed to orders for disclosure and then not complied with them. Whatever the true sale price of the overseas home, the husband kept all of it, and the funds he kept were well in excess of $300,000. The judge chose not to add the money back into the pool, partly because the other overseas funds could not be valued, and instead weighed it in the overall assessment under s 75(2)(o), the catch-all factor about what justice requires.

Over 41 years, the judge found nothing to suggest the contributions were not equal; the wife had worked for long periods and had also been the main carer of the children. Both were unwell and on the pension, so there was no adjustment for future needs.

The judge ordered the husband to transfer his share of the home to the wife, who took it with its mortgage, and each kept what was already in their own hands. The judge noted that if the overseas money had been added back, the couple would have received roughly equal shares in any event.