Court rules life’s a lottery when a divorced couple divides assets
/The Family Court has ruled that a husband can keep the fortune he won playing TattsLotto during the first year of a decade-long relationship on the grounds he chose the numbers, purchased the ticket and, most importantly, cashed the cheque into his personal bank account.
The case came before three judges of the Full Court after the wife, who cannot be named but is known in court records as Mrs Elford, complained she had received just $51,000 in a divorce settlement from her husband, despite him having more than $1 million in the bank. Most of that money was TattsLotto winnings.
The court heard Mrs Elford, then 35, and her husband, then 57, started living together in 2003 and married in 2007. Both had been married previously.
Mr Elford owned his own home outright, and had $110,000 in superannuation. Mrs Elford’s position was more precarious: she had three dependent children, then aged 3, 6 and 9, a mortgage and a credit card debt.
They decided to keep their finances separate, and never opened a joint bank account.
Twelve months into the marriage, Mr Elford, using numbers in his family at least since 1995, won $620,000 in the lottery. He put the money in a term deposit in his name, along with savings, and an inheritance from his mother.
That term deposit is now worth more than $1m.
The couple kept their finances mostly separate from the outset, with Mrs Elford in charge of buying food and clothes, and covering costs associated with her three kids, and Mr Elford, in his words, “keeping a roof over our heads”.
In 2011, Mr Elford had a stroke that left him almost blind, and unable to drive or read. He now requires kidney dialysis three times a week, and paid carers assist him with various household tasks.
Mrs Elford left about a year after the stroke, apparently expecting she’d get a fair slice of the Lotto money.
According to documents, she wanted $320,000 but when the case came before a lower court, her husband was ordered to pay $51,000.
Three senior judges — Diana Bryant, Peter Murphy and Paul Cronin — agreed to hear the wife’s appeal.
Mrs Elford’s counsel argued the TattsLotto money should be treated as a “joint contribution” by the parties because “the marriage was almost 10 years duration. They did things jointly. There was a common togetherness, there was a common joint venture that they were in a marriage. That’s what their relationship was about … a common use of the property.”
The evidence, however, suggested the couple kept their assets and finances separate, and did not ever have joint bank accounts.
Asked about this, Mrs Elford said: “That was always his request. What accounts he had were his. He never wanted a joint account.”
In denying Mrs Elford’s appeal, the court conceded that while she had “clearly made non-financial contributions to the relationship (such as) cooking, cleaning and gardening”, Mr Elford had helped by picking up her children after school when she was working. The court also noted the husband had no obligation to provide for the children since they were not his.