Unpaid price for half the home comes off the wife's share
The Family Section separated a couple for the wife's cruelty and adultery and found she never paid the €43,000 a deed said she paid for half the home. It matters to anyone relying on a receipt clause between partners.
Mr Justice Anthony Vella, sitting in the Civil Court (Family Section), on 21 May 2026 granted a husband a separation on the grounds of his wife's cruelty and adultery. The court found that the wife had never paid the €43,000 stated in a notarial deed as the price of her half of the matrimonial home. It ordered that sum deducted from her share when the house is sold.
The facts
In ABM vs DBM, the parties lived together for about 20 years and had two children before they married in 2018. Their son is an adult and their daughter turns 18 in January 2027. The husband is self-employed and bought several properties before the marriage.
By a deed of 2016, before the wedding, the husband transferred an undivided half of the house the family lived in to the wife for €43,000. The deed stated that she paid the whole price on the spot. In 2022 and 2023 the husband received messages from a man who said he had been in a relationship with the wife.
The husband left the home and sued for separation, custody, the house and the €43,000. The wife did not file her sworn reply in time. In a partial judgment of 26 September 2024 the court refused to excuse her default, struck out her reply and counterclaim, and ended the community of acquests, so it had only her note of submissions before it.
What the court held
The court held that a single ground under article 40 of the Civil Code (Chapter 16 of the Laws of Malta) is enough for separation. It held that adultery needs no eyewitness and may be proved by grave, precise and concordant circumstances.
Relying on the messages, recordings in which the wife confirmed a later relationship and her conduct at home, the court said: "Dawn huma indizji u prezunzjonijiet gravi biżżejjed sabiex jikkonvincu lil dina l-Qorti li kien hemm adulterju" (These are indications and presumptions grave enough to convince this court that there was adultery).
The wife argued that the husband never called the other man as a witness. The court accepted that the man had changed his number because he was afraid. It declared the wife responsible for the breakdown through cruelty and adultery and applied against her article 48 and articles 51 to 61.
On the €43,000, the wife testified that she paid in cash before the notary. The notary could not remember the deed and said she would not sign one unless the money had passed. The court found her evidence evasive and noted that the wife had never worked before the case and produced no proof of savings.
The court also relied on an email of 4 December 2023 in which the wife's lawyer wrote that she would pay the €43,000 if the parties agreed on everything. Despite the wording of the deed, it held that these facts "ma jhallix l-icken dubju f’ghajnejn dina l-Qorti li l-verzjoni tal-attur hija iktar kredibbli" (leave not the slightest doubt in the eyes of this court that the plaintiff's version is more credible).
The house did not go to the husband. The court held that the daughter's stability came first, so the house stays in common and the wife and daughter may live there for two years, or longer while the daughter studies full time. It must then be valued and sold, with €43,000 deducted from the wife's share, and either party may buy the other out.
The court kept joint custody, with the daughter living with her mother and wide, free access for the father. It raised maintenance to €300 a month plus half of education and health costs, because the husband's properties and long self-employment showed a stable income.
Because of the wife's fault, the court gave the husband the whole of a joint account of €58,817. It ordered that rents from his own properties go to him from the date of judgment and that a property he had transferred to her by emphyteusis, a long lease, return to him.
Why it matters
A receipt clause in a notarial deed does not end the question of payment. The Family Section weighed the notary's memory, the buyer's means and a lawyer's settlement email against the deed and found the price unpaid.
A spouse who defaults in a family case is left with a note of submissions, and that note cannot replace evidence. Lawyers advising a spouse found at fault should also expect the court to weigh that fault when it divides joint savings.
Where it sits
Article 38 allows separation for adultery, and article 40 for excesses, cruelty, threats or grave injuries. Article 48 sets out what the spouse at fault loses, including the right to maintenance and to half the acquests made chiefly by the other spouse's work after a date the court fixes. Maintenance for a child follows article 7(1) and article 20, which ties the amount to the need of the claimant and the means of the payer.
On the difference between excesses and cruelty the court relied on a judgment of 27 April 2017. On cruelty it cited the First Hall of the Civil Court (30 June 1961). The court named no authority on the unpaid price and decided that point on the evidence.
Source
Civil Court (Family Section), 62/2024, 21 May 2026.