By any measure it was an unusual relationship: a 26 year marriage in which the two lived apart for 21 years, coming together as a family most weekends and for holidays. A later relationship property spat over assets valued at some four million dollars saw a nine year difference between the two as to the date their relationship ended, leading to a disputed variance in value of assets to be divided.
The two met as law students in Auckland during the 1980s.
Names were supressed in the publicly issued Family Court judgment.
The court was told they worked overseas for three years before returning to Auckland in 1995.
He subsequently got a job with a law firm outside Auckland; she preferred to remain.
Over the next two decades, he worked as a law firm partner away from Auckland, visiting Auckland most weekends where their two children stayed with their mother. She did not return to legal practice.
Assets accumulated from his income included houses at each of their locations, plus a share in a holiday home. They holidayed as a family, both in New Zealand and overseas.
Evidence was given of the husband paying expenses for both houses, household expenses for his spouse and family in Auckland including education expenses for their children.
She was paid a monthly $800 allowance, stopped when he later learnt through a mutual friend that she was now in paid employment at a business owned by one of her relatives.
Their marriage was dissolved in 2024.
Valuation of relationship property was hampered by differing views as to when their relationship ended.
She said it was 2021; the date her lawyers wrote to her husband formally announcing their marriage was over.
He said it was 2012; when he was firmly committed to living out of Auckland with partnership at a new law firm he shifted to. Alternatively, it was 2017/18 he said; a time when emails between the two arguing over payment of family expenses saw his spouse signalling that she was looking to finalise their arrangement with a relationship property claim.
Judge von Keisenberg ruled it was 2018.
Living separately for extended periods, by itself is not evidence of legal ‘separation;’ couples can still be committed to each other and their relationship.
But by 2018, increasingly angry emails containing phrases such as ‘I want you out of my life’ and ‘How do you wish to proceed with the divorce?’ signalled their relationship was over.
The nature of their relationship and continuing financial contributions made by the husband after their 2018 separation complicated relationship property calculations.
The wife was entitled to a Property (Relationship) Act payment for ‘economic disparity;’ her loss of otherwise potential income arising from her role in primarily caring for their children. The monetary value of this opportunity cost was assessed at $384,000 after deduction of an allowance for post-separation relationship expenses paid by the husband.
It was agreed property held in family trusts would be treated as if it were relationship property; these assets had been funded from the husband’s earnings: relationship property.
Relationship assets and trust assets were split 50/50; each given full ownership of the property they occupied, with cash adjustments to equalise values.
The husband has to bear any tax consequences of their two family trusts being unravelled, Judge von Keisenberg ruled.
‘Darwin v. Garner’ – Family Court (7.04.26)
26.130