A man who claimed his home was his “life’s work” placed it in a family trust when his marriage ended.<\/p>\n
He thought that would protect it from any claim by a future partner.<\/p>\n
Now, his equity in the home, already reduced by the divvying up of relationship property when his marriage ended, could be whittled away further.<\/p>\n
The woman with whom he had a relationship after his marriage has successfully challenged her right to a claim on the property when they separated after 10 years together.<\/p>\n
The Family Court found that when Roy Webster* placed the property in a trust at around the time his friendship with Joanna Pocock* bloomed into a relationship, he deliberately prevented any claim by her.<\/p>\n
Barrister and family lawyer Jeremy Sutton told NZME it was a timely reminder to others that on their own, family trusts do not always protect people, and that often, a prenuptial agreement is needed as well.<\/p>\n
“Just having a family trust, when someone moves in (to a home owned by the other partner), is not enough to fully protect you,” Sutton said.<\/p>\n
“A prenuptial agreement as well will protect you for a time, but that agreement needs to be reviewed to reflect changed circumstances, just like a will needs to be reviewed as well.”<\/p>\n
According to the Family Court decision, Pocock and Webster met in 2009.<\/p>\n
Their relationship developed and by the following year, or early 2011, they were in a de facto relationship. It was not until June 2020 that the relationship ended.<\/p>\n
Webster’s 26-year marriage had ended in early 2010 and he moved out of the home. But he later returned when his former wife moved out of the property. Pocock and her five children eventually moved in with him.<\/p>\n
By then, Webster and his former wife had agreed on the division of their relationship property.<\/p>\n
rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A man who claimed his home was his “life’s work” placed it in a family trust when his marriage ended. He thought that would protect it from any claim by a future partner. Now, his equity in the home, already reduced by the divvying up of relationship property when his marriage ended, could be whittled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11416,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11414\/revisions\/11416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}