A KwaZulu-Natal high court judge has delivered a scathing rebuke to a wealthy, retired attorney who tried to walk away from a three-decade marriage, leaving his wife with nothing more than a maintenance cheque and a demand that she be ordered to pay punitive legal costs.
Judge Pieter Bezuidenhout ordered the lawyer to transfer 40% of the net value of his estate to his former wife, pay her maintenance of R20,000 for a year and cover all her legal costs. This brought their acrimonious divorce fight to a bruising end, laying bare allegations of control, financial exclusion and post-separation retaliation.
The couple, whose identities were partially redacted, moved in together in 1993 and were married in 1999. Their relationship lasted more than 30 years before collapsing in 2023. They were married out of community of property and without accrual, meaning if the wife chose to leave the marriage she could take with her only assets registered in her name.
The court was unimpressed, finding this arrangement to be unfair.
The court heard that the woman began working for the lawyer when she was 18, immediately after leaving school. She was appointed as a receptionist in 1987, and at the time he was 31, married and involved in legal work. He started divorce proceedings against his first wife and in 1990 he asked his second wife out on their first date. She moved in with him in 1993, and they lived together until their marriage ended in 2023.
Over the years the woman rose in her job, eventually becoming a legal secretary in her husband’s practice. She became central not only to his work life, but to the running of his home, the care of his children from a previous marriage, and even his hobbies.
He took up skydiving, and she packed his parachutes and attended drop zones. She backed him when he took up motorcycle riding and was involved with entertaining clients.
“She spent the prime period of her life being with [her husband] all the time,” Bezuidenhout said.
Though the lawyer employed domestic workers and gardeners, the judge found that it was the wife who ran the household, supervised staff, paid municipal accounts from her salary and handled the logistics of their multiple properties.
In my view such conduct is not what one would expect of parties to a marriage where people have lived together for over 30 years.
— Judge Pieter Bezuidenhout
Crucially, the court accepted her version that she had no independent financial freedom, was discouraged from holding cash and was repeatedly assured that she did not need a pension because her husband would “look after her”.
By the time the marriage ended, she was 57, unemployed, living off interim maintenance, without savings or medical cover, and relying on her sister to fund her legal battle.
The husband, now 70, painted a different picture, claiming his wife was marketably skilled, overplayed her financial need and had been fully reimbursed for household expenses. He valued his collection of paintings by well-known South African artists at a modest R200,000 and downplayed the extent of his assets, listing little more than cash, a handful of Krugerrands and interests in trust-held property.
But the court repeatedly flagged serious disclosure gaps, particularly around trusts, companies, paintings, gold coins and property structures that appeared to shield wealth from scrutiny. While he insisted he had made full disclosure, the judge was unconvinced.
“We do not know what the present value of the property is. There has been no further disclosure,” Bezuidenhout said, describing the financial picture as incomplete.
What appears to have tipped the scales further was what happened after the woman left the matrimonial home in Leisure Bay.
She moved into a jointly owned coastal property. The attorney obtained a court order to force its sale, bought it himself at auction for R500,000, then accused her of theft after she removed household furniture and cutlery to set up a rented home.
The husband charged her with theft, but this was abandoned and he later pursued the matter in civil proceedings.
“In my view such conduct is not what one would expect of parties to a marriage where people have lived together for over 30 years,” the judge said.
Invoking recent Constitutional Court authority, Bezuidenhout reaffirmed that spouses married out of community without accrual are not barred from redistribution claims under the Divorce Act ― especially where one partner has contributed indirectly to the growth of the other’s estate.
Importantly, the court also factored in the six years of pre-marital cohabitation, accepting that the couple functioned as partners long before they formalised their union.
“It is not necessary that the claimant spouse must have made a contribution in excess of her ordinary duties,” the judgment stated. Domestic labour, emotional support and sacrifice were enough.
While the court rejected lifelong maintenance, it also rejected the notion that a woman who had spent three decades supporting her husband should leave the marriage empty-handed.
“It is difficult to understand on what basis… [he] expects [her] to just walk away from the marriage with nothing,” Bezuidenhout wrote.
The final order grants a decree of divorce, orders the husband to hand over 40% of his estate, pay the woman maintenance for a limited time to help her resettle and pay her full legal costs.
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