LIN v PAR [2025] EWFC 401

Judgment date: 21 November 2025

https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewfc/2025/401

Peel J. Final hearing in financial remedy proceedings. The couple’s 2002 draft consent order had not been sealed by the court, but the parties had acted upon it with the belief that it had been formalised. Peel J determined that it constituted a Xydhias agreement, which was not vitiated by non-disclosure nor reduced in weight by undue pressure.

Background

H and W had received a Decree Absolute in February 2002; [1]. The parties had separated in 2000 following a childless nine-year marriage; [2]. Peel J found that they had entered a Xydhias financial agreement in 2001, but the draft consent order had not been sealed by the court; [2]. W and H had believed that it had been formalised and accordingly had divided their modest assets equally to enable a clean break; [3].

H was a wealthy businessman and had remarried, whilst W had not remarried and was less financially successful through her work as an artist; [4].

In 2022, W became manipulated by a ‘Mr TP’, who sought to discover more about H’s finances with the intention of causing H financial harm; [5]. Having discovered that no final order had been made, he led W to believe that she had been duped, and she therefore brought a financial remedies application; [5]. Mr TP’s involvement ended by early 2025, potentially once he realised that obtaining financial disclosure about H would be difficult due to H’s ‘millionaire’s defence’; [72].

Mr TP had provided W with legal funding; [74]. H had funded part of W’s litigation as a result of both a consent order and an LSPO; [80].

Peel J was satisfied that the parties had reached a Xydhias agreement in 2001, under which their assets had been divided approximately equally; [47]. The parties both exited the marriage with negligible assets; [55]. In 2005, after a company of H’s became successful and was taken over, he had given W £193,000; [60].

The parties’ positions at final hearing

W sought £10m for ‘interim needs’, full disclosure of H’s wealth, and a non-disposal undertaking; [6].

W submitted that:

1. There was material non-disclosure by H, and thus the agreement should be disregarded;
2. Further or alternatively, W entered into the agreement whilst under pressure and accordingly it carried reduced weight;
3. Further or alternatively, the agreement was not implemented and accordingly carried reduced weight;
4. Regardless of the findings, the court has a duty to consider the overall fairness in accordance with s 25. An award to provide for W’s housing and income needs would be fair; [8].

H’s case was the W should be held to the agreement; [9]. He did not seek orders for costs or for repayment of monies paid to W for her legal fees; [139].

The parties’ resources

W had assets of £100,375 and indebtedness of (-£489,555); [11]. Peel J considered that the loans to Mr TP and ‘Mr K’ (either an alias of Mr TP or an associate) were unlikely to be sought; [12]. Peel J concluded that W was likely to return an income of c.£100,000 net; [12].

H relied upon the ‘millionaire’s defence’, acknowledging that his wealth exceeded £100m and that he would be able to meet an order; [14].

Peel J’s order of October 2024 recorded W’s position that her claim was capped at £5m to be assessed solely with reference to needs; [15]. No case for sharing was submitted; [15].

Open proposals

In June 2025, W sought £5m and in July 2025, she sought £2.63m; [16],[17]. Neither of her calculations were particularised until just before the final hearing; [17].

In June 2025, H proposed a clean break and sought repayment from W of his legal expenses; [18]. He then withdrew the requirements for repayment, effectively proposing a ‘drop hands’ result; [19]. In October 2025, H made an open offer to purchase a property for up to £500,000 for W to occupy for the rest of her life, with its capital value remaining with or reverting to him; [20]. H’s primary case remained that W’s claims should be dismissed; [20].

Evidence

Peel J concluded that W’s ‘mistrust of H expressed in the witness box is in large part the product of Mr TP’s malign involvement’, rendering her evidence ‘unsatisfactory’; [21]. The expert cross-examination of H, which had sought to establish that he had been guilty of non-disclosure, ‘did not land any significant blows’; [22].

Peel J found W’s description of the couple’s ‘lavish international lifestyle’ unconvincing and instead regarded their standard of living as ‘conventional and not out of the ordinary’; [28].

The initial agreement

Peel J concluded that the parties had reached a Xydhias agreement in October 2001 (per Xydhias v Xydhias [1999] 1 FLR 683) on the bases that:

1. contemporaneous issues surrounding drafting put and call options (discussed [86]–[90]) would not have affected the substantive agreement;
2. that if W had believed that these issues had indicated H’s reneging, she could have applied to make the initial agreement into court order; and
3. in January 2002, she had agreed to his proposal; [93].

Peel J noted that the agreement to divide the assets broadly equally was consistent with White v White [2000] 2 FLR 981. He concluded that it was a ‘mystery’ why the draft order was not then sent to the court, and that ultimately ‘both parties thought an order had been made by the court and acted accordingly’; [99].

Undue pressure

W argued that alleged undue pressure was a relevant factor which reduced the weight to be attached to the agreement; [100]. Peel J considered ‘undue pressure’ per Edgar v Edgar [1981] 2 FLR 19, 25; [100].

W’s case was, inter alia, that she had had financial and housing insecurity, that she was unwell, and that H stopped her use of a credit card; [101]. Peel J did not accept this; [102].

Alleged non-disclosure

Peel J noted that:

1. that where vitiation due to non-disclosure is asserted, the approach to non-disclosure is the same across nuptial agreements, Xydhias agreements and Edgar agreements, per Helliwell v Entwistle [2025] EWCA Civ 1055, [94];
2. that non-disclosure can be either fraudulent or inadvertent;
3. the distinction drawn by Mostyn J in Cathcart v Owens [2021] EWFC 86, [30], between fraud and non-disclosure;
4. that if non-disclosure is found to be intentionally fraudulent then it is assumed to be material and the burden of showing otherwise lies with the representor and that where non-disclosure is found to be inadvertent it is for the representee to prove materiality (per Sharland v Sharland [2015] UKSC 60, Gohil v Gohil [2015] UKSC 61 and Helliwell v Entwistle [2025] EWCA Civ 1055);
5. that materiality means whether a court would likely have made the same, or a materially different order, because the authorities show the need to demonstrate the effect of non-disclosure upon an order (per Cathcart v Owens [2021] EWFC 86, [33], Sharland v Sharland [2015] UKSC 60, [33], Livesey v Jenkins [1985] FLR 813, 830E, and Gohil v Gohil [2015] UKSC 61, [44]); [103].

W asserted that H did not disclose his interest in ‘Company E’; [108]. Peel J found that ‘she knew about the existence of Company E but showed no interest in it’, that any theoretical value was illiquid and that no marital monies had been invested into it; [117]. He therefore concluded that ‘it is unlikely that a court would have made a materially higher award in her favour’; [117].

Implementation of the agreed draft order

Peel J rejected W’s case that loan notes were not transferred to her following the draft order; [119]. W had asserted in written evidence that three million shares in ‘Company C’ had not been transferred to her, but admitted orally that it occurred in 2005; [120].

Matrimonialisation

W asserted in written evidence that H’s shares in Company E had become matrimonialised; [121]. Having considered Standish v Standish [2025] UKSC 26, Peel J held that the shares had not been matrimonialised; [121].

Conclusion

Peel J noted that, per Wyatt v Vince [2015] UKSC 4, there is no limitation period to a financial remedies application, but that the delay of over 20 years must be highly relevant in any analysis of fairness; [124], [125]. He also noted, per Chambers v Chambers [1980] 1 FLR 10, that the longer the lapse of time the more secure the respondent should feel in their financial position; [126]. Moreover, he noted that needs should be met only if there is a clear causal link between the needs and the relationship, and that a needs award will not be justified purely by the fact of a payer’s substantial wealth; [129].

Peel J considered that W’s income would provide for her rental accommodation and general needs and made no order for H to pay W capital or income; [141], [142]. He found no causal link between her 2025 needs and the relationship; [144].

Peel J held that there should be no order in favour of either party, effecting an immediate clean break; [145].