Father slammed for trying to hide property from ex-wife

Namibia’s Supreme Court has given a scathing judgment in the case of a man who resorted to fraud or attempted fraud to hide his new property acquisitions so his ex-wife couldn’t access them for child maintenance. Instead, the properties were bought in the name of his then-fiancée so that they would appear not to belong to him. The judges have held that such an agreement was against public policy, ‘morally reprehensible’ and thus unenforceable, writes Carmel Rickard in her A Matter of Justice column on the Legalbrief site. The man, who has since walked out on his fiancée and married someone else, was trying to get the properties back from his fiancée now that their relationship had ended. The Supreme Court ordered that he should get 60% of the two properties and his former fiancée, 40%. The judges also approved the High Court’s order that the former fiancée be paid N$5 000 for breach of his promise to marry her.