"When I didn't win, I thought about spending my whole life with him. When I got money, he immediately betrayed me." On October 10, Ms. Dezhou Yuan from Shandong told reporters that her husband was a lottery fan. On December 17 last year, he won a grand prize of 10.17 million yuan, 8.14 million yuan after tax. But then he changed. He watched the live broadcast all night and rewarded the female anchor, and he rewarded more than 1.2 million yuan.
Ms. Yuan said that one time her husband claimed that he had something to do and was out for four days. She went to the station to pick up her husband and found that he and a female anchor came and went together.
Ms. Yuan also said that when she first won the lottery, her husband gave her a 3 million yuan card. "When I came back, he gave me a 3 million yuan card and told me to keep it for my future retirement. I trusted him very much at the time. I didn't even look at it. I just kept it in the drawer."
Ms. Yuan later filed for divorce. "I found out after checking the account that on the third day after winning the lottery, he withdrew 7.1 million yuan. He said he would put 3 million yuan here for us to use for our retirement, but the card was actually empty!" "When I didn't win the lottery, I thought about spending the rest of my life with him. When I got the money, he immediately betrayed me. He once said that he would find an anchor to give him a child…"
In response, Ms. Yuan’s husband responded: “I spent the money, and she has already sued me. We will wait until the trial!”
Regarding Ms. Yuan’s experience, many netizens said, “This is the joint property of husband and wife and can be recovered.” Is that really the case?
Previous cases
Earlier, the People's Court of Longwan District, Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province heard a real case.
Ms. Lin's husband, Mr. Zhou (pseudonym), has always loved buying lottery tickets, and Ms. Lin usually doesn't take it seriously. She never thought that the "pie" from the sky would hit her house.
Unexpectedly, one day two years ago, Mr. Zhou really won the lottery, with a bonus of 10 million yuan and 8.43 million yuan after tax. But Mr. Zhou had selfish motives and hid the matter from his wife. On the day the bonus arrived, Mr. Zhou secretly transferred 2 million yuan to his sister. After that, he used the bonus to pay more than 700,000 yuan for the purchase of a house for his ex-wife.
"Congratulations, I heard that your husband won 10 million! What a great news! He must have bought a luxury house, right? Have you bought a new car…" It was not until Ms. Lin accidentally learned the truth from the lottery shop owner and investigated the bank records that the secret finally came to light.
Since the couple was already at odds with each other, this multi-million dollar award only exacerbated the rift between them. In the end, Ms. Lin filed for divorce in court and requested the division of the marital property.
court decision
After a trial, the court ruled that the relationship between the two parties had broken down and granted divorce. The money that Mr. Zhou transferred to his sister and paid for the house for his ex-wife all came from Mr. Zhou's lottery winnings, which were the joint property of the husband and wife. He did not inform Ms. Lin that it was a transfer of the joint property of the husband and wife. He should compensate Ms. Lin for 60%, which is 60% of the more than 2.7 million yuan transferred, or more than 1.62 million yuan to Ms. Lin. Neither party appealed after the verdict, which is now in effect.
Judge's comments
According to the provisions of Articles 1062 and 1065 of the Civil Code, in the absence of special agreement, Mr. Zhou’s lottery winnings of 8.43 million yuan should belong to the joint property of the husband and wife. However, he concealed the fact that he won the lottery and transferred the joint property of the couple by transferring money to his relatives and paying the house payment for his ex-wife. According to the provisions of Articles 1066 and 1092 of the Civil Code, when dividing the joint property of husband and wife in divorce, Mr. Zhou, as the party transferring the property, may receive a smaller share or no share. Therefore, the court made the above judgment.
