Home acquired from parents during marriage is an acquest

The Civil Court (Family Section) held on 12 February 2026 that a flat a wife acquired from her parents during the marriage belonged to the community of acquests, not to her alone. Mr Justice Anthony Vella separated the couple in D.D. vs GC for reasons attributable only to the husband, and dissolved the marriage. The court held back from dividing the flat, because the wife had given it to one of the couple's sons while the case was pending.

The facts

The parties have been married for decades and have three adult children. The wife sued for separation and divorce, alleging adultery, cruelty, grave insults and domestic violence linked to the husband's drinking. The husband agreed to a separation but blamed the wife. During the case the court issued a protection order in her favour.

Their only asset was the matrimonial home, a flat the wife acquired from her parents during the marriage. She took one half by sale and the other by datio in solutum, a transfer made in payment for the care she had given them. She claimed the flat as her paraphernal property; the husband said it formed part of the community.

While the case was pending, the wife donated the flat to one son. The husband has sued in the First Hall of the Civil Court to rescind the donation, and that case is still pending.

One son testified to years of drinking and violence at home. Two other children described a normal family life. Police reports and medical records led the court to call their account “għal kollox inveritiera” (entirely untrue).

What the court held

The court rejected the claim of adultery. Attributing adultery needs “indizji u prezunzjonijiet gravi” (grave indications and presumptions), and the wife had offered only her allegation. The court found the husband responsible for the breakdown through cruelty and grave insults, and declared that he had forfeited any right to maintenance from the wife.

It rejected her separate claim to apply the effects of articles 48 to 52 of the Civil Code (Chapter 16 of the Laws of Malta) against him. The husband's pension came to about €450 a month. The court fixed the wife's maintenance at €200 a month, to be deducted directly from that pension.

On the flat, the court read the records of the husband's rescission case without requiring copies to be exhibited. They showed two deeds the wife had not disclosed: a hypothec both spouses granted to a bank for a loan to carry out works on the flat, and a sale by both spouses of its airspace to another son.

The court held that the flat belonged to the community for three reasons. It was acquired during the marriage. Both spouses charged it with a hypothec for the works. Both spouses sold its airspace. The wife's silence on those deeds, the court found, did not help her case.

Because the flat no longer belonged to the parties after the donation, the court abstained from the claims about it until the rescission case ends, including the claim to liquidate the community. The operative part, in ordering the husband out of the flat, still describes it as the wife's paraphernal property.

On divorce under article 66, as the judgment cites it, the court required no prospect of reconciliation, no problem over maintenance and de facto separation for more than four years. All three were met, since the deduction from the pension cured the maintenance problem. The court kept the protection order in place and ordered the husband to pay all costs.

Why it matters

A spouse who calls a home paraphernal must disclose every later deed on it, because joint hypothecs and joint sales can decide its character. Giving a disputed home to a child during a separation does not end the dispute; it can stall the division until a separate rescission case is decided. Maintenance ordered straight out of a pension can also clear the maintenance condition for divorce.

Where it sits

Students learn that what spouses acquire during marriage by onerous title generally falls into the community of acquests, while what one spouse brings into the marriage or receives by gratuitous title stays paraphernal. This flat came from the wife's parents partly by sale and partly in payment for services. The court placed it by looking at when it was acquired and at how both spouses later dealt with it.

The protection order rests on the proviso to article 37(2) of the Civil Code, which applies articles 412C and 412D of the Criminal Code. On the use of another court's records, the judgment cited an earlier judgment of 3 October 2008, attributed to the same court, holding that a court may consider the acts of the civil courts without formal copies. On the other points the court decided on the articles and the evidence.

Source

Civil Court (Family Section), 282/2023, 12 February 2026.