Court restores marital home to husband after sham sale to ex-wife
TDT | Manama
Email: mail@newsofbahrain.com
A man has won back ownership of his home after the High Civil Court ruled that a BD270,000 property transfer to his ex-wife was a sham intended only to protect the asset.
The court found that the sale contract between the couple was not genuine and ordered the house to be returned to the husband’s name. The decision followed the submission of a signed statement from the ex-wife, confirming that the sale was only on paper and that her husband had remained the rightful owner throughout.
The statement, dated 21 February 2010, was presented by the man’s lawyer, Zuhair Abdullatif. The court deemed it legally binding, noting that the ex-wife neither denied her signature nor challenged the content. Under Bahraini law, a private document stands as valid unless its signature is explicitly denied.
The man had purchased the home in early 2010 but soon faced financial difficulties. To protect the property, he transferred it to his wife’s name in a fictitious sale, trusting she would safeguard it. Just one day after the transfer, the property was registered in her name. Less than a year later, she divorced him through khula, a form of wife-initiated divorce.
Despite efforts to resolve the matter privately over the years, the ex-wife refused to return the property and even threatened to sell it. The man eventually took legal action, presenting the court with his ex-wife’s written admission that the deal had been for formality only.
In its ruling, the court referred to precedents set by the Court of Cassation, affirming that in sham transactions, the true intent of the parties takes precedence over the registered deed. If it can be proven that a transfer was only symbolic, actual ownership must be honoured.
The court concluded that the sale was not real and ordered the Survey and Land Registration Bureau to remove the ex-wife’s name and reissue the property deed in the husband’s name.
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