Divorce
Grandison v Joseph [2019] EWHC 977 (Fam), [2019] All ER (D) 30 (May)
The husband’s appeal against an order made in financial proceedings, on the day the decree nisi was made absolute, was dismissed. The order provided that, unless the husband, by a certain date, transferred the legal title to 42 properties from either the joint names of the parties or the wife’s name into his sole name, and obtained the release of the wife from her obligations under the mortgages on the properties, they would be placed on the market for sale. The Family Division, in dismissing the appeal, rejected the husband’s argument that the order, and a related deed, provided only for the transfer of the beneficial interest (and not the legal interest) in the properties. The court further held that the order had plainly been one within the judge’s discretion, and that she had been right to find that the husband had not used his best endeavours to obtain the wife’s release from the mortgages.
