The matrimonial home: where family law and property law collide

Families rarely distinguish between owning a home, living in it, and being able to dispose of it. Separation is usually the moment they discover these are three different legal questions with three different answers.

Ownership is not the whole story

Title determines who owns. It does not, by itself, determine who may continue to reside. A woman in a domestic relationship may have a right to reside in a shared household irrespective of whose name is on the title.

The questions that actually get litigated

• Whose funds bought the property, and what the contribution evidence shows.
• Whether a transfer to a spouse or parent was a gift, a benami arrangement, or a genuine sale.
• Whether a residence right blocks a sale, and what happens to a purchaser who buys into that dispute.

Keep the money trail. Years later it is the only witness that does not change its account.

Where a settlement is reached, record it properly and register what needs registering. An informal understanding is the seed of the next dispute.