A judge has ordered that a man who perpetrated extremely violent acts against his live-in lover should receive €125,000 from her as payment for his interest in the house that they shared. The property was valued at €650,000 in 2002 and is now worth over €1 million.
Judge Alison Lindsay also held that the woman, in what she called an extremely volatile relationship, used violence on her partner, who "also bore scars". The couple cannot be named to protect the identity of their children.
She heard the couple bought the house jointly in 1995 for €108,000, with the woman contributing slightly more for the purchase. They lived in it, apart from intermittent break-ups, until their relationship finally broke down in 2001.
The man had sued for an order for joint beneficial ownership in the property and had faced a counter claim from the woman for damages for physical and emotional assault and battery, causing psychological and bodily harm. The court dismissed the counter claim.
Judge Lindsay said the man had left or been asked to leave the house on several occasions and on one of those occasions, he signed over his interest in the house to the woman for €19,000, which he had received.
The judge decided he signed over his interest having been induced to do so by the woman on the grounds that he would be kept out of the family home if he failed to do so and having been told that if he signed over his interest, the couple's live-in relationship would resume.
The court, which ordered both parties to bear their own legal costs, held that the man had rejected legal advice not to sign away his interest in the property. The judge decided the woman exerted pressure on him to sign and that this had amounted to undue influence.
Judge Lindsay said the amount of money for which the man had signed over his interest did not represent the value of his interest in the property.