Today, 2nd July 2025, the Supreme Court made its ruling in respect of the case of Standish v Standish. This matter has been pivotal in Family Law in respect of providing essential guidance on whether assets accrued prior to marriage should be considered matrimonial when considering the financial settlement on divorce. 

Lord Burrows and Lord Stephens dismissed the wife’s claim in the matter and reinstated the decision of the Court of Appeal. The Judges in their decision set out the following key points:

• There is a “conceptual distinction” between non-matrimonial property and matrimonial property, which turns on the source of the assets
• The sharing principle only applies to matrimonial assets, not to non-matrimonial property (unless subject to principles of needs and compensation)
• The starting point is always an equal division of matrimonial assets
• Where an asset starts as non-matrimonial, it is possible for it during the marriage to become “matrimonialised”
• What is important is how the parties deal with the asset, if they have been treating it as shared between them then it is likely to have been “matrimonialised”.

In their ultimate decision, the Judges confirmed that in this case the transfers of property by the husband to the wife in 2017 were made for inheritance tax saving purposes only and furthermore, were for the benefit of the children of the family and not the wife. Therefore, those assets were not considered to have been “matrimonialised”. 

You can read the full judgement here.