Corsan v Corsan [2025] CSOH 24 (Outer House, Court of Session)

Financial provision in a farming divorce: inherited funds intermixed with the family business shared; economic disadvantage of a spouse who gave up her career recognised.

Background

This was a contested divorce in which the central dispute was how to divide the value of a family farming business built up over a long marriage. The husband wished to keep the farming partnership and argued that various sums he had inherited or been given by his parents, including the capital he received when they retired from an earlier partnership, should be excluded from the matrimonial property or should justify an unequal division in his favour. The wife, who had given up a banking career early in the marriage to work in the home and the business, sought a capital sum and argued that she had suffered an economic disadvantage in the interests of the family.

The decision

The court applied the framework in the Family Law (Scotland) Act 1985, under which the net value of the matrimonial property is shared fairly, meaning equally unless special circumstances justify otherwise. It rejected most of the husband’s source-of-funds arguments, holding that money he had put into the partnership had become matrimonial property and had been intermixed with the wealth the couple built together; only one modest inherited sum, which had never been absorbed into the business, was left out of account. The wife retained the part of her pension referable to her pre-marriage service. Significantly, the court took fair account of the economic disadvantage the wife had suffered by giving up her career, and made a separate allowance to reflect it, contributing to a capital sum of £310,209 payable to her by the husband.

Why this decision matters

The decision is a useful illustration of how the Scottish courts treat inherited and pre-marital assets brought into a family business: where funds are intermixed over years, they can change character and fall to be shared. It also underlines the continuing importance of the economic-disadvantage principle for spouses who set aside careers in the interests of the family.