A woman locked in a divorce battle over an £11 million fortune claimed she had sacrificed her career to be a homemaker but has found wives like her face discrimination in the courts.
Julia Hammans, a financial director, married accountant Nicholas Hammans in 1983. When she became pregnant six years later she agreed to give up her job to care for the family, a court heard.
Mr Hammans went on to carve out a successful career and is a multi- millionaire partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers who the court was told earned £800,000 last year.
The couple enjoyed a high standard of living on the husband’s “very big earnings” until they split in 2004. But after a divorce court judge divided the family fortune, which Mrs Hammans values at £11 million, she claims her income is now 10 times smaller than that of her ex. She says she is being forced to sell her £1.75 million home and is fighting the judge’s ruling.
At the Court of Appeal, her lawyers argue she is entitled to “compensation” from her husband’s earnings to make up for the working life she “sacrificed”. Her QC Patrick Chamberlayne told the court Mrs Hammans, 55, gave up work “by agreement” with her husband.
When the couple, who have two grown-up children, split up, Mrs Hammans received the £1.75 million family home in Twickenham as part of an interim settlement.
But in March this year, Mr Justice Coleridge, sitting in the High Court Family Division, ordered she must sell her home in order to part-fund her living expenses.
She had sought a further £2.6 million from her ex-husband, but the judge told Mr Hammans, 54, to pay only £400,000. He ruled that she needed £80,000-a-year, which she could generate largely herself from interest on £1 million savings and by moving home. Mr Chamberlayne argued she should be given an extra £2.2 million, and allowed to keep her home. He said: “It clearly is discriminatory that wives have to jump through these hurdles in order to qualify for a fair outcome.”
Philip Marshall QC, for Mr Hammans, insisted: “The wife in this case has been properly and fairly treated.”
The judges will give their ruling at a later date.
