Crozier v Crozier
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE GLIDEWELL,LORD JUSTICE NOLAN |
| Judgment Date | 07 December 1993 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1993] EWCA Civ J1207-4 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 07 December 1993 |
| Docket Number | 93\6421\E |
[1993] EWCA Civ J1207-4
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM PLYMOUTH COUNTY COURT
(Sir Jonathan Clarke)
Before: Lord Justice Glidewell Lord Justice Nolan
93\6421\E
MR. C NAISH (Instructed by Wolferstans, Plymouth) appeared on behalf of the Appellant
The Respondent was not represented
Tuesday 7 December 1993
This is an application for leave to appeal against a decision of His Honour Sir Jonathan Clarke on 8 June this year, sitting in Plymouth County Court, when he dismissed an application for leave to appeal out of time against an order made by District Judge Tromans in the same Court on 7 April 1992. The order was a property distribution order which related to the former matrimonial home of Mr. and Mrs. Heard, formerly husband and wife. The property is 66 Saltash Road, Keyham, Plymouth. It was purchased by Mr. Heard in 1966 before he married. He married his wife in 1970; they have two children who are now respectively just 18 and just 20. The marriage came adrift and there was a decree absolute in March 1979, but then there was a reconciliation. The husband left, then returned to the matrimonial home and Mrs. Heard went back to live with him; they then lived together again for about 7 years. The marriage eventually broke down at the end of 1987. At that point Mrs. Heard, as she then was, left and went to live with another man, and the parties have since lived apart.
Although that happened at the end of 1987, it was not until December 1991 that the wife applied for ancillary relief, and it was that application that came on for hearing before District Judge Tromans. As is so frequently the case, the main asset of the parties, the sole asset under consideration, was the matrimonial home. Before the hearing the wife's solicitors had obtained a valuation of the property in the sum of £67,500. The property is a large double-fronted terraced house, about 100 years old. It was not, at the time of the valuation which was September 1991, in particularly good condition; it certainly, according to the valuer, needed a lot of modernisation. But it was still a liveable family home. It was subject to a mortgage debt in the sum of about £10,000. It was estimated that the costs of sale would be about £2000, so everybody was agreed at the hearing before District Judge Tromans that the equity was about £55,500. I have already said that it was the wife's solicitors who obtained the valuation. The husband did not seek to challenge it, partly because he thought the property was worth at least £67,000 having himself tried to market it at an appreciably higher value.
The District Judge ordered that the house should be sold and the husband's solicitors should have the conduct of the sale, and that the net proceeds of the sale should be divided as to £16,000 to the wife, with the balance to the husband. We have a note of the District Judge's judgment from which it is apparent that he took the view that, while the wife had an interest in the property and she was entitled to be compensated out of that, he ought, if possible, to put the husband in a position where he could purchase an alternative property for himself with the assistance of another mortgage loan, suggesting that he would be able to get a mortgage loan in the sum of about £5000. The husband also had a gratuity to come to him (which he has now received since he has retired) of a further £5000. Taking those matters into account, the District Judge arrived at his decision. Mr. Naish, who has addressed us on behalf of the husband today, accepts that on the basis of the valuation figures he had before him it was a perfectly proper order for the District Judge to make.
However, it then transpired that almost certainly the valuation was too high. I put it in that way because in June 1992, only two months or a little more after the hearing before the District Judge when the husband was attempting to pay off the wife to enable him to remain in the matrimonial home, he was...
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