Gambling's black hole gives ex-wife a rude awakening

PAUL BIBBYOctober 19, 2013

"The mortgage on the house is now $456,000 in debit": Justice Judith Rees. Photo: Supplied
 

The mother of three thought her family's finances in rude health - mortgage paid, the bank balance bulging and the family trust producing enough income to ensure the good life for years to come.

But when she and her husband separated earlier this year the Sydney woman discovered they were sitting not on a golden egg, but in a gaping hole created by his gambling and a series of mysterious expenses for which he seemed unable to account.

A child support judgment by the Family Court earlier this year reveals that soon before the couple's 16-year marriage came to an end the mortgage on the matrimonial home was just $1.60. The sale of business interests had reaped $1.57 million which the woman - who cannot be named for legal reasons - thought was collecting interest in the husband's bank account.

But by 2013 things had changed dramatically.

''The evidence is that the mortgage on the house is now $456,000 in debit, and that the amount remaining from the sale of the business is about $56,000,'' Family Court judge Justice Judith Rees said.

A significant proportion of the loss, Justice Rees said, was explained by the husband's gambling, though he was unable to quantify the extent of his losses.


''I cannot say how much I gambled, but I acknowledge that it was a large amount,'' the husband wrote in a sworn affidavit tendered in court.

The man also said he had invested $600,000 in superannuation for himself and his wife, but documents showed it was only $372,844 between the two of them.

He said money had been spent on a business and a margin lending investment, with the balance of the missing cash explained as ''living expenses'' which could not be accounted for.

Justice Rees found that, even if these explanations were accepted, $956,000 remained unexplained.

''The husband has wasted by gambling significant funds which are unspecified,'' Justice Rees said.

''He has failed to account for $850,000 from the sale of the business and has failed to properly account for about $156,000 from the funds withdrawn from the mortgage.''

The man's evidence regarding his personal income (just $28,506 a year) and the income from the family trust ($40,000 to $50,000 in total) was similarly ''unsatisfactory'', the judge found.

''There was no real or helpful attempt by the husband to comply with his obligations to make disclosure, such disclosure being clearly within his power,'' she said.

''I am left with the comfortable certainty that his assets exceed those which he discloses and that his income exceeds that which he asserts.''

Justice Rees ordered the freezing of the man's assets and the immediate sale of another property held under his name.

Despite the man's submissions that he did not have the capacity to make support payments, she ordered him to pay his wife and children $1350 a week.


http://m.smh.com.au/nsw/gamblings-black-hole-gives-exwife-a-rude-awakening-20131018-2vs6s.html