Just every paper is running a story about a lesbian couple. One went out to work and made lots of money. One stayed home and ran the house. Now they’ve split, the homemaker has half the house. Fair or not?
Except that’s not the actual point at issue in the slightest. No, you don’t get half the house for being a homemaker. This isn’t true of hetero couples nor is it true of any other mixture of genders or sexual tastes. But it is true that if you own half a house then you own half a house:
An unemployed female law graduate has won half of the £1.7m home she lived in with her ex-girlfriend after arguing she played the role of a “housewife” in the relationship.
Shree Ladwa, 43, was gifted expensive jewellery and hundreds of thousands in cash during a 16-year relationship with her businesswoman ex, Beverley Chapman, 46.
Ms Chapman worked to fund their luxury lifestyle, paying off the mortgage, buying her an Aston Martin for her birthday and proposing with a diamond ring on a Monte Carlo clifftop.
Well, no, she’s not won it.
An unemployed law graduate who was accused of living off her ‘cash cow’ rich girlfriend has won a legal fight for half of their £1.7million former home.
No, not really. Here’s the important part:
Ms Chapman said she had been used as a “cash cow” by Ms Ladwa and had been pressured into putting their house in Chingford, Essex, under both of their names. They bought the property for £1.4 million in 2007, and added Ms Ladwa’s name within a year.
The house was in joint names. That is, she owned half of it. So, during the relationship she owned half the house. After the relationship she owns half the house. This isn’t a difficult concept now, is it?
The actual court fight was the working partner arguing that she shouldn’t have put her name on the house in the first place and that thus her having put her name on the house – you know, confirming ownership, by definition – shouldn’t stand.
It’s amazing how often stories get reported the wrong way around, isn’t it?
The language we use matters - it provides clarity to our own thoughts and enables…
It is now generally acknowledged that the structure of the NHS needs to be overhauled…
In the film Apollo 13, a loss of oxygen causes the crew to start inadvertently…
There's an idea out there which seems intuitive but then so many ideas do seem…
When we think about the darkly opaque goals of modern central bankers as they relate…
As the papers recently filled with the distressing images of desperate souls looking to escape…
View Comments
Here in Oz the wife (almost always female) gets 60% of the combined assets. And I saw something the other day that suggests future earnings are part of that asset pool.
My sympathies are with Ms Chapman - welcome to the world of the husband!
Here in Oz the wife (almost always female) gets 60% of the combined assets. And I saw something the other day that suggests future earnings are part of that asset pool.
My sympathies are with Ms Chapman - welcome to the world of the husband!
The second quote is correct, Tim:
> An unemployed law graduate ... has won a legal fight for half of their £1.7million former home.
She has indeed won that legal fight and the legal fight was for half the house.