rich wife to pay exhusband $4000 per week - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

dlish · 06-14-2010, 10:50 AM

this article has double standards written all over it.

why is this even news? has this been a rich male paying his ex-wife $4000 a week, this wouldnt even feature in any newspaper.

The man gives up his dayjob at the request of his wife, to look after the kids and in the process lives the high life for a number of years. i say she owes him half what she's got. the shoe's on the other foot for once.

i wonder who looks after the kids

is this a fair judgement in your opinion? should he be paid crazy amounts of money to do sweet FA now that he is divorced?

i can see why it sounds so wrong, but many women have been milking it for years playing those same cards

Quote:

Rich wife to pay ex-husband $4000 a week | News.com.au

ONE of Australia's richest divorcees has been ordered to pay her waiter husband $4000 a week in spousal maintenance so he can keep up the wealthy lifestyle to which she got him accustomed.

The wife, who cannot be named, is a beneficiary of a trust with $600 million in assets. According to court documents, her income is $58,529 a week and, while she was married, she had treated her husband to many luxuries.

Now they are separated, she wanted to pay him $18 a week to supplement the $380 a week he earns waiting tables between two and six nights a week in a Sydney restaurant.

Family Court judge John Cohen said that was unfair, because the husband had "lived the life of a very wealthy gentleman" until the marriage broke up in 2008.

"To expect him to work as a waiter in a suburban restaurant or club, as he was when he met his wife, and as he is now doing, is quite unreasonable," Justice Cohen said.

"He has been a gentleman of leisure for many years . . . the marriage is the direct reason the husband has not maintained or developed employment skills, is not used to work and is used to a life of leisure, luxury and privilege."

The court heard the couple, known as Read and Chang, met in 1985 and initially lived modestly.

The husband "worked full-time at a club when they started living together" and at one point held two waiting jobs, one during the day and one at night.

In 1989, the wife began receiving income from a trust. The amounts were initially modest - some $60,000 in the first year, for example - but the trust is now valued at $600m.

There are seven beneficiaries. The husband told the court his wife insisted he give up work when she had their second child "because they could afford to live on the trust she was receiving".

Justice Cohen said a "good measure" of the manner in which the couple lived was the statement from the black American Express credit card for the year July 2006 to June 2007.

Total charges were $500,527 or a touch over $9000 a week. The court heard the couple "always owned expensive cars, they travelled overseas, they spent $1200 on one dinner at a restaurant in Tokyo and $1000 at another in Paris, the whole family travelled business class by air".

The couple moved overseas in 2007 so the children could go to exclusive schools.

They spent $19,230 on a television set and $4500 on an espresso machine for the new house, but the marriage ended soon after, upon which the husband returned to Australia and resumed work as a casual waiter.

The husband told the court he would need $8543 a week to "maintain the lifestyle he has become accustomed to".

The wife will have to pay the $4000 a week until a final split of assets is agreed, at a later date.

FuglyStick · 06-14-2010, 10:55 AM

Goose, meet gander.

Baraka_Guru · 06-14-2010, 11:06 AM

Oh, I think it would have been in the news. Four grand per week is a kingly sum. It would have made the news if the genders were reversed.

I'm interested in the reactions to the story, however.

Cimarron29414 · 06-14-2010, 11:39 AM

I don't know about Australia, but in the U.S., trusts are written in such a way as to not be included in divorce decrees. The contents of trusts are not assets you acquire during your marriage, and therefore, aren't fair game for the "half" argument. Instead, you simply become the executor of the trust and have dominion over how it is used. You never "own" that which is in the trust. This protects the contents from divorces...and estate taxes.

However, since this guy allegedly quit his "oh, so promising career" of serving and "didn't develop employment skills during his marriage", blah, blah, blah. Seems to me, if the dude had sucked a better dick, he wouldn't have been kicked off the gravy train.

Just can't muster feeling sorry for anyone in this story.

inBOIL · 06-14-2010, 06:13 PM

I don't see how the shoe's on the other foot, unless the woman's status as trust beneficiary came about as part of a divorce settlement. One partner lived off another's money for a few years, and is now legally entitled to continue to do so. Just because the sexes are the opposite of what normally happens doesn't make this any more or less right.

Ayashe · 06-14-2010, 06:58 PM

This seems well-deserved as I read it.

Daniel_ · 06-14-2010, 11:08 PM

Take gender away and this story has happened a million times.

As far as I am aware, the trust is an asset of the marriage under Aussie law, and is therefore included in the divorce - in UK law it's arranged that way to prevent a rich person boxing their assets before marriage to prevent them being eligible for the divorce that may happen; I think Aussie law is the same.

The $4,000 is only until the assets are apportioned, and I suspect that they will be taken into account - again, under UK law the day you file is the point at which your estate is valued, and any money spent BY EITHER PARTY is accounted for by the Judge.

A recent divorce I saw unfold had the ex-wife go on a mad spending spree to run down her savings so that she'd "get" more from her husband (the marriage ended due to her infidelity, and yet she felt he owed her more than half of the shared assets).

In the end, the court said that the split should be close to 50/50, but that as she'd spent so much money, she got practically nothing - most of what she spent was non-recoverable (holidays etc).

I laughed.

dlish · 06-15-2010, 01:26 AM

ill be honest, its been so long since ive looked at trusts, i dont recall what aussie law says about trusts.

if i recall correctly, family trusts were protected when it came to personal bankruptcy, but i dont remember about marital relationships...may be wrong.

According to this artcle, it seems that he's going to have access to some of that money, which leads me to believe that he'll get a chunk out of what she ends up with. $4K a week aint bad

my comment about the shoe being on the other foot was only really to say that the roles have been reversed. nothing more. i guess ive heard all the stories about men being screwed over in divorce and alimony settlements, i guess im not used to seeing it the other way around. if the law entitles him to it, i say good luck.

if i were him, id keep my waiting job and save as much as i could, but easy come, easy go. this money wont last by the sounds of it.

nice story daniel...she should have got a slap on the hand factored into the final settlement that reduced her final value to teach others not to screw with the system. she would have had to pay him in the end. that'd have had even more comical value.

Jove · 06-15-2010, 04:48 AM

Just because he married and divorced a super wealthy woman does not mean he should get $4000 a week for doing nothing.

Shauk · 06-15-2010, 06:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jove

Just because she married and divorced a super wealthy man does not mean she should get $4000 a week for doing nothing.

Edited for gender equality. welcome to truthsville.

KirStang · 06-15-2010, 06:09 AM

I think this case differs from the 'My wife worked 2 jobs to get me through med-school' story we often hear. In this case, the husband did not really contribute to the acquisition of wealth, as the trust was probably set up by the wife's parents.

However, some of the cases I've studied have been more lenient towards giving maintenance to women but not to men, so it's nice to see the opposite happening here.

Baraka_Guru · 06-15-2010, 06:14 AM

Quote:

"He has been a gentleman of leisure for many years . . . the marriage is the direct reason the husband has not maintained or developed employment skills, is not used to work and is used to a life of leisure, luxury and privilege."

Ha! There's the rub. You can't take an animal from the wild, domesticate him, and then years later release him back to his original habitat! He'll get himself killed!

Truthfully, though, if you choose to spoil the guy and not make him work or develop any skills, you can't expect to just spit him out and have him say, "Okay, I'll just pick up where I left off years ago; it's cool."

kutulu · 06-15-2010, 12:14 PM

I'm of the opinion that unless the couple gets a prenup then everything needs to be split down the middle. Child support be determined based on someone's ability to pay and alimony is appropriate for a limited period of time so that a spouse can have time to become self-sufficient.

I'm certainly not going to lose sleep over having to share their $600M trust fund. She would go from being obscenely rich to obscenely rich. It isn't like she earned that money anyways.

blahblah454 · 07-02-2010, 08:42 PM

4K a week is just over 200,000 a year. Assuming her trust never grows, that 200k a year is not even going to put a dent in it. Give the man his 4k a week just to shut him up.

raging moderate · 07-03-2010, 05:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blahblah454

4K a week is just over 200,000 a year. Assuming her trust never grows, that 200k a year is not even going to put a dent in it. Give the man his 4k a week just to shut him up.

Very true, plus I'd think you have to factor in the fact that she didn't have the money when they met, so even though she acquired it through an inheritance, the fact remains that she came into the money while they were married. Any money that a couple comes into while married belongs in equal shares to both people, as far as I understand it. 50/50 split would not be unreasonable.

Baraka_Guru · 07-03-2010, 05:49 AM

Such numbers are beyond me. It takes me about two months to make that kind of money. Per week?!

Tully Mars · 07-03-2010, 08:20 AM

I agree with all the goose/gander talk.

All that aside- I'm amazed at the amount of money some people have. I recently did 3-4 days diving with a guy, during surface breaks we had lunch together and I met his wife. He said he wouldn't be diving the next day and then talked about having to travel a lot for work. Named several cities he needed to be in over the next week. I mentioned "Wow, you must have a lot of air miles!" He explained "when you own your own jet they don't give you air miles they just charge you for fuel and stuff."

Some people are on such a different income level most of us have no comprehension. I remember years back when Michael Jordan was seen in a casino playing 100K hands of back jack. When asked about it later he stated "I make 2 mil. a game, if I play $100 it doesn't mean anything to me. I have to play enough per hand to make it interesting or not at all." I did the math and his playing 100K a hand was like me playing $25-$50 bets and if I played .05 a hand it probably wouldn't hold my interest very long either.

06-14-2010, 11:06 AM	#3 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	Oh, I think it would have been in the news. Four grand per week is a kingly sum. It would have made the news if the genders were reversed. I'm interested in the reactions to the story, however. __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

06-14-2010, 11:39 AM	#4 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	I don't know about Australia, but in the U.S., trusts are written in such a way as to not be included in divorce decrees. The contents of trusts are not assets you acquire during your marriage, and therefore, aren't fair game for the "half" argument. Instead, you simply become the executor of the trust and have dominion over how it is used. You never "own" that which is in the trust. This protects the contents from divorces...and estate taxes. However, since this guy allegedly quit his "oh, so promising career" of serving and "didn't develop employment skills during his marriage", blah, blah, blah. Seems to me, if the dude had sucked a better dick, he wouldn't have been kicked off the gravy train. Just can't muster feeling sorry for anyone in this story. __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

06-14-2010, 06:13 PM	#5 (permalink)
inBOIL I have eaten the slaw	I don't see how the shoe's on the other foot, unless the woman's status as trust beneficiary came about as part of a divorce settlement. One partner lived off another's money for a few years, and is now legally entitled to continue to do so. Just because the sexes are the opposite of what normally happens doesn't make this any more or less right. __________________ And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

06-14-2010, 06:58 PM	#6 (permalink)
Ayashe Psycho	This seems well-deserved as I read it. __________________ I am only a little spoon in a huge world of soup.

06-14-2010, 11:08 PM	#7 (permalink)
Daniel_ Evil Priest: The Devil Made Me Do It! Location: Southern England	Take gender away and this story has happened a million times. As far as I am aware, the trust is an asset of the marriage under Aussie law, and is therefore included in the divorce - in UK law it's arranged that way to prevent a rich person boxing their assets before marriage to prevent them being eligible for the divorce that may happen; I think Aussie law is the same. The $4,000 is only until the assets are apportioned, and I suspect that they will be taken into account - again, under UK law the day you file is the point at which your estate is valued, and any money spent BY EITHER PARTY is accounted for by the Judge. A recent divorce I saw unfold had the ex-wife go on a mad spending spree to run down her savings so that she'd "get" more from her husband (the marriage ended due to her infidelity, and yet she felt he owed her more than half of the shared assets). In the end, the court said that the split should be close to 50/50, but that as she'd spent so much money, she got practically nothing - most of what she spent was non-recoverable (holidays etc). I laughed. __________________ ╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗ Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air, And deep beneath the rolling waves, In labyrinths of Coral Caves, The Echo of a distant time Comes willowing across the sand; And everthing is Green and Submarine ╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝

06-14-2010, 10:55 AM	#2 (permalink)
FuglyStick WHEEEE! Whee! Whee! WHEEEE! Location: Southern Illinois	Goose, meet gander.

06-15-2010, 01:26 AM	#8 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	ill be honest, its been so long since ive looked at trusts, i dont recall what aussie law says about trusts. if i recall correctly, family trusts were protected when it came to personal bankruptcy, but i dont remember about marital relationships...may be wrong. According to this artcle, it seems that he's going to have access to some of that money, which leads me to believe that he'll get a chunk out of what she ends up with. $4K a week aint bad my comment about the shoe being on the other foot was only really to say that the roles have been reversed. nothing more. i guess ive heard all the stories about men being screwed over in divorce and alimony settlements, i guess im not used to seeing it the other way around. if the law entitles him to it, i say good luck. if i were him, id keep my waiting job and save as much as i could, but easy come, easy go. this money wont last by the sounds of it. nice story daniel...she should have got a slap on the hand factored into the final settlement that reduced her final value to teach others not to screw with the system. she would have had to pay him in the end. that'd have had even more comical value. __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

06-15-2010, 04:48 AM	#9 (permalink)
Jove Groovy Hipster Nerd Location: Michigan	Just because he married and divorced a super wealthy woman does not mean he should get $4000 a week for doing nothing.

06-15-2010, 06:09 AM	#11 (permalink)
KirStang Future Bureaucrat	I think this case differs from the 'My wife worked 2 jobs to get me through med-school' story we often hear. In this case, the husband did not really contribute to the acquisition of wealth, as the trust was probably set up by the wife's parents. However, some of the cases I've studied have been more lenient towards giving maintenance to women but not to men, so it's nice to see the opposite happening here.

06-15-2010, 12:14 PM	#13 (permalink)
kutulu Junkie	I'm of the opinion that unless the couple gets a prenup then everything needs to be split down the middle. Child support be determined based on someone's ability to pay and alimony is appropriate for a limited period of time so that a spouse can have time to become self-sufficient. I'm certainly not going to lose sleep over having to share their $600M trust fund. She would go from being obscenely rich to obscenely rich. It isn't like she earned that money anyways.

07-02-2010, 08:42 PM	#14 (permalink)
blahblah454 Let's put a smile on that face Location: On the road...	4K a week is just over 200,000 a year. Assuming her trust never grows, that 200k a year is not even going to put a dent in it. Give the man his 4k a week just to shut him up.

07-03-2010, 05:49 AM	#16 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	Such numbers are beyond me. It takes me about two months to make that kind of money. Per week?! __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

07-03-2010, 08:20 AM	#17 (permalink)
Tully Mars Living in a Warmer Insanity Super Moderator Location: Yucatan, Mexico	I agree with all the goose/gander talk. All that aside- I'm amazed at the amount of money some people have. I recently did 3-4 days diving with a guy, during surface breaks we had lunch together and I met his wife. He said he wouldn't be diving the next day and then talked about having to travel a lot for work. Named several cities he needed to be in over the next week. I mentioned "Wow, you must have a lot of air miles!" He explained "when you own your own jet they don't give you air miles they just charge you for fuel and stuff." Some people are on such a different income level most of us have no comprehension. I remember years back when Michael Jordan was seen in a casino playing 100K hands of back jack. When asked about it later he stated "I make 2 mil. a game, if I play $100 it doesn't mean anything to me. I have to play enough per hand to make it interesting or not at all." I did the math and his playing 100K a hand was like me playing $25-$50 bets and if I played .05 a hand it probably wouldn't hold my interest very long either. __________________ I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club