JL v SL (Financial Orders: Property inherited during marriage)

Husband and wife – Joint property and matrimonial causes. Shortly before her marriage had ended, the wife had received a lump sum payment from her mother (the lump sum), which was derived from her late father's estate. Some of that money had been transferred to the husband. In subsequent matrimonial proceedings, the wife claimed the lump sum. A district judge ruled that that sum had become a matrimonial asset. The Family Division, in granting permission to appeal and allowing the appeal, held that the treatment of the evidence by the district judge, which had led to that conclusion, had been erroneous and that she had erred in the exercise of her discretion.