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Sat, Nov 09, 2024 | Jumada al-Awwal 7, 1446 | DXB
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UAE: Man sues wife for over Dh141,000 after she refuses to pay her share of joint house loan
The case was initially dismissed by the court of first instance, however, the husband appealed the ruling and the woman was ordered to pay him
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A husband in Abu Dhabi has sued his wife for failing to pay her share on a bank loan that they obtained together to build commercial villas.
The Emirati man demanded that his wife pay him Dh141,780 and the legal interest.
He explained in his lawsuit that he and his wife were both granted a piece of residential land, and they decided to obtain a housing loan of Dh2 million from the bank to construct villas on the land. They both had to pay a monthly instalment of Dh4,170 to the bank. The husband said he was the guarantor for the loan.
The man said he paid the monthly bank instalments alone up to the date of filing the lawsuit. He said that his wife, who was also a beneficiary of the housing loan, did not commit herself to paying her share of the loan, and refused to pay when he asked her to. He then decided to take her to court.
The woman submitted a memorandum to court, showing that she jointly owned the plot of land with her husband and that they obtained the bank loan together and built four villas on it.
However, she noted that her husband, the complainant, had rented out the villas after their completion and received the rental amount alone. Therefore, he was not entitled to ask her to pay her share of the loan used to build the property.
She requested the court to dismiss the case for lack of justification.
A report by an accounting expert assigned by the court showed that the value of the housing loan obtained by the couple was Dh2 million and only Dh500,000 had been paid to the bank. The remaining loan balance was Dh1.5 million. The report also showed that it was only the husband who made the payments since the first instalment using cheques.
The Abu Dhabi Family and Civil Administrative Cases Court of First Instance had earlier issued a ruling dismissing the case.
The husband challenged the verdict to the civil appeals court, which cancelled the ruling by the first instance court and ordered the woman to pay Dh141,780 to her husband for failing to pay her monthly payments to the bank.
The judge said in his ruling that there was sufficient evidence that the couple jointly obtained the bank loan and that they were supposed to repay the money to the bank together.
The woman will pay for her husband’s legal expenses.
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