The Court of Appeal’s decision in Standish v Standish has provided much needed certainty for practitioners that it is source not title that determines if an asset is marital or non-marital.

Writing in Law.com’s Private Client Global Elite Magazine, The Month, partner Mark Harper and senior associate Rachael Burton explained that the decision has created challenges for practitioners providing wealth planning advice to their clients who may have an eye on divorce, leaving uncertainty due to the wide discretion that the judges retain to determine precisely how a marital asset is to be divided.

They further noted that the case presents an example of unsuccessful tax planning, as despite the initial plan to transfer financial assets in the value of c.£77 million from the husband’s sole name into the wife’s sole name into a discretionary Jersey trust, deeds were drafted but never executed, and as such by the time of the divorce the transfer into the trust had not taken place.

Read Mark and Rachael’s article in full, here on page 10 of the magazine.