A woman’s relationship ended with her partner taking her to court over a share of the home she had bought while he was in prison. 

But Gordon Harmon* has succeeded in gaining only a 15% share of the family home, which is worth about $900,000, after the Family Court ruled extraordinary circumstances existed and that granting an equal share would be fundamentally unjust.

Judge Tony Fitzgerald said in reaching his decision on a case where much of the evidence was focused on “who spent what on groceries”, that what had kept the pair in the same home was a commitment to the care of their three children.

“But shared care of children is not the same as a commitment to living together as a couple as this case demonstrates.”

The Family Court has ruled that granting a man an equal share of the family home owned by his ex, who bought the home and paid for its running, was fundamentally unjust. Photo / 123rf

Harmon and Carol Spanos* were in a de facto relationship but could not agree on when it started.

“That is the first issue I must decide,” Judge Fitzgerald said.

The second was whether extraordinary circumstances existed that made equal sharing of the family home unacceptable.

Relationship continued after man sent to prison

The pair met and began dating in the early 2000s.

About six months later Harmon was arrested and subsequently sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment on undisclosed charges.

The pair remained in contact, and in 2005, Spanos bought a property using money from the sale of a home she had owned earlier, plus borrowings.

Harmon was released on parole in 2006 and spent six months on home detention at his mother’s place, where Spanos would often visit.

She believed the relationship was little more than “boyfriend-girlfriend” but Harmon thought differently, and told the court this was when the de facto relationship began.

In 2007 he moved out from his mother’s address and into a rental property.

Home ‘separate property’

The couple’s first child was born several years laterand Spanos and the child moved into Harmon’s rental, where they lived for about 21 months.

She agreed she was in a relationship with him at the time but said it did not have the characteristics of a de facto relationship.

She made it clear to Harmon that her home was her separate property. She met all the outgoings, such as mortgage, rates and insurance payments, and there was never any intermingling of the parties’ finances.

They broke up in late 2010 when Spanos moved back to her home and Harmon looked after their child from “time to time”.

The following year, a second child was born, and Harmon carried out childcare duties while Spanos went to work.

Second relationship discovered

Even though they lived separately throughout 2011 and 2012, their relationship was amicable much of the time, Judge Fitzgerald said.

He said Spanos then found out in late 2012 Harmon was having a relationship with another woman and sought a temporary protection order against him.

In August 2013, Spanos had the temporary order lifted and almost immediately, Harmon began visiting her and the children at her home, before he moved in and began living there, Judge Fitzgerald said.

He said communications between the pair throughout 2014 and 2015 were generally polite and friendly but “rather business-like more than affectionate”.

They had a cost-sharing arrangement for bills such as power, groceries and school fees.

Third child arrives

Their third child arrived and 10 months later Spanos returned to work. The couple’s cost-sharing for the children’s education began when they started school, Judge Fitzgerald said.

For five months Harmon paid Spanos $50 a week as a contribution towards household expenses.

Judge Fitzgerald said there was evidence showing Spanos had arranged a Working for Families benefit, all of which was paid to her.

He described her as “quite adept” at getting the state benefits and tax credits she was entitled to.

In 2017 she saw a lawyer to get a relationship property contracting-out agreement prepared.

In 2018 Spanos alleged she was assaulted by Harmon, which he disputed, but Judge Fitzgerald preferred Spanos’ view which was backed by corroborating evidence.

They stopped living together as a couple soon after. Spanos went briefly to a women’s refuge but returned home and the pair remained under one roof, but lived largely separate lives.

Their predicament was forced further by Covid-19 lockdowns from March 2020, and in November that year Harmon was issued with a brief police safety order for an undisclosed reason.

Caveat registered by Harmon after locked out of house

Spanos then changed the locks on the house and did not give Harmon a new key, and asked him to leave.

A few months later Harmon registered a caveat against the title to the property. His reasons were that he wanted her to “shut up and leave him alone” so he could raise the children in peace.

“It was a bad relationship; we were arguing, and I just wanted her to leave me alone,” he claimed.

In deciding that Harmon was entitled to a 15% share of the home to reflect his contribution and not a 50-50 split, Judge Fitzgerald found the de facto relationship was in two periods; the first being 21 months long from February 2009, and the second was four years and four months from November 2013.

He said it was only this second period that was spent in the family home which made an equal share fundamentally unfair or unjust.

Spanos was entitled to costs because she had succeeded in almost all the issues in dispute, Judge Fitzgerald said.

*Names changed in accordance with statutory rules around reporting Family Court.

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.