A former high-flying finance executive, who said he wanted to abandon wealth management for a lower-paid “dream” career has been criticised by a Family Court judge over “curious” financial arrangements during a bitter divorce battle… which also ended with a ruling over the family Labradoodle.
According to a newly published judgment, the accountant – who has not been named alongside his former spouse – claimed he wanted to swap high finance for life as an instructor, earning less than 10% of his former salary.
Among the “curious” financial arrangements highlighted before the court was a transfer of nearly £190,000 to his mother after launching proceedings.
The Royal Court’s family division found that many of the husband’s explanations about his loans and repayments “were not credible”.
The couple were married in 1998 and separated in 2024 after raising three children.
The husband had earned over £500,000 a year managing wealth for a high-net-worth family before being made redundant in 2024.
Since losing his job, he had not applied to work again in finance, telling the court he would be “prioritising fulfilment over a high salary” and instead hoped to retrain as an instructor, where he expected to earn a starting salary of £25,000 to £30,000 annually.
Family judge Elizabeth Daultrey said that the husband “may choose to follow his dream”, but noted “that is a lifestyle choice and not a necessity”.
She concluded that that the husband could easily expect to earn at least £50,000 per year if he were to return to work in finance, ordering that the court should make orders for spousal maintenance based upon what it was “reasonable” for him to earn.
Central to the case was almost £189,000 paid by the husband to his mother after the marriage broke down, which he claimed related to repayment of an old family loan used to buy a property abroad.
But the judge highlighted multiple “curious” features of the arrangement, including money being paid to the husband’s parents and then apparently loaned back weeks later.
The judge found that it was “hard to avoid the conclusion” that the husband’s intention was to “defeat” his former wife’s claims.
The court also noted that the husband had stopped paying the mortgage on the former matrimonial home, leading to significant arrears, while simultaneously repaying his parents £110,000 in lump sums shortly after receiving his redundancy payout.
The judgment said it was difficult to understand why he had prioritised those repayments while claiming he could not afford the mortgage or contribute towards his former wife’s living expenses.
“[The husband] is clearly financially astute, he has spent his career working in the finance industry at a high level, the curious aspects of his financial arrangements cannot therefore be explained by financial naivety or mistakes,” the judge said.
The judgment painted a picture of a once highly affluent lifestyle, with annual family spending said to total almost £250,000.
However, by the end of proceedings, the couple’s legal fees alone had ballooned to almost 26% of the remaining assets.
The wife, who had not worked for over 20 years, argued she needed greater financial support because of her limited earning capacity.
The court agreed, awarding her around 55% of the couple’s capital assets and spousal maintenance beginning at £1,500 per month.
The judgment also addressed the matter of the family dog – a 10-year-old Labradoodle.
Both parties wanted custody, but the court ruled the dog should stay with the wife in Jersey.
A shared-care arrangement “would be the best outcome”, the judge said, but was impractical because of the “potentially unpleasant travel arrangements” it would subject the ageing dog to.
