Between: Adrienne Elizabeth Politowicz Petitioner v Richard Charles Kuriger IV Respondent

• Jurisdiction: Cayman Islands
• Court: Grand Court (Cayman Islands)
• Judge: Mr. Justice Richard Williams
• Judgment Date: 11 March 2025
• Docket Number: CAUSE NO: FAM 241 OF 2023

Between:

Adrienne Elizabeth Politowicz

Petitioner

and

Richard Charles Kuriger IV

Respondent

Neutral Citation Number: [2025] CIGC (Fam) 3

Before:

Hon. Mr. Justice Richard Williams

CAUSE NO: FAM 241 OF 2023

IN THE GRAND COURT OF THE CAYMAN ISLANDS

FAMILY DIVISION

Financial provision — ancillary relief — division of assets — equal sharing

Appearances: Mr. David McGrath from McGrath Tonner for the Petitioner

Ms. Lynne McDonagh from KSG Attorneys for the Respondent

The Application

1 This is the hearing to determine ancillary relief proceedings between Adrienne Elizabeth Politowicz, the 56 year-old Petitioner wife (“the wife”), an Richard Charles Kuriger IV, the 55 year old Respondent husband (“the husband”). The wife is a US citizen and is domiciled and ordinarily resident in the Cayman Islands where she has a work permit. She intends to submit a permanent residence application in 2025. The husband is also a US citizen and he resides in Texas, USA. There are no children of the marriage, but the husband has three adult children 1 from his previous marriage.

2 I hope that the parties will not be offended if I hereafter refer to them, for convenience, as the husband and the wife.

The historical and procedural background

3 The parties met in Texas, USA and commenced a relationship in May/June 2011. The wife was then aged 42 and the husband was then aged 41. The husband was going through divorce proceedings from his first marriage at that time and his children were aged around 14, 12 and 10. The husband states that they started cohabiting in June 2011. The wife says that they started to fully cohabit in January 2012. The difference in the dates is not significant in these proceedings. The wife said that, after they met, she extended the lease of her rental property for six months and that she stayed with the husband on and off during that time.

4 They married on 16 June 2012 in Florida, USA after a short engagement. The wife was aged 43 and the husband was aged 42 at the time.

5 In March 2012, four months before the marriage 2, the husband purchased the Sage Road property (“Sage Road”) in Texas for US$493,500 in his name. The parties cohabited at Sage Road from the time of its purchase. It was a large home because the husband's children would spend considerable time there. By October 2011, his middle child (son), A, made it clear that he did not want to live with his mother, so he ended up residing at Sage Road with the parties. His two siblings (son “Q” and daughter “K”), pursuant to a shared custody arrangement, were to stay from Thursdays until Sundays with a degree of flexibility 3. During cross-examination, the husband said about Sage Road that he “intended (it) to be a family home and it became a family home. One child lived full time there, two children about half of the time”. From the evidence, I find that Sage Road was a family

home, with the wife taking on a stepparent role and assisting with the care of the husband's children when they were residing at Sage Road. The husband paid the relatively small percentage down payment which was only US$24,675. A 95% mortgage (US$468,825) was taken out in the husband's sole name on Sage Road. The husband was the one who made the mortgage payments of US$4,000 per month. He said that he also paid for all the utilities, annual property taxes, improvements, maintenance and the housekeeper. He said that the parties kept their finances segregated in their individual bank accounts.

6 The wife agrees that Sage Road was purchased in the husband's name and that he paid the mortgage payments adding that was because he had “three degrees in financing and he had a relationship with the banks in Texas where he was from, so he handled it”. The wife further added:

“In 2012 I put money into the family pot. Spent on groceries, homes/decor, on him and me and the children. No part of (my) income gone elsewhere outside what we see in the documents. (I have) no side inheritance or property anywhere. I thought normal, he handle larger scale things, he businessman, three master degrees, so I let him handle that side of the marriage. I do the other sides, groceries, holidays over the top for the family. That was throughout the marriage” and “ He take(s) care of the financing and I take care of other things: decor, children's needs, paint walls. I do the house type things whilst working and I give money to make a house a home.”

I accept that this was the general arrangement. I find that all the mortgage payments were voluntarily made during the period of cohabitation and marriage by the husband who had the larger income. The parties clearly adopted a position that he would take the lead in relation to the management and payment of the household finances. I do not accept the husband's contention that five years living at Sage Road is a short time. I do not accept his submission that Sage Road should not be regarded as a matrimonial property. For the purpose of my determination under the Matrimonial Cause Act (“the Act”), it is irrelevant whether the husband believes that Sage Road would not be regarded as being a matrimonial property under Texas statute. It was not a property purchased and owned by the husband some time before the marriage or before the parties' relationship; it was acquired very shortly before the marriage when the parties were already cohabiting with the clear intention that it would be a first matrimonial home. In addition, the down-payment was a small one with, save for 3 or 4 months, the mortgage payments being made during the marriage. Accordingly, I find that Sage Road should be treated as being the first matrimonial property for the purpose of these proceedings.

7 At the time that the parties met the wife was working as a Sales Representative for a dental company earning US$100,000 per year. Shortly after the marriage, in early 2012, she took up the post as an Executive Administrator/Medical Liaison employee with a law firm on an annual salary of around US$140,000. At the time of the marriage, the husband was working as a Regional Vice President for a well-known insurance company and he said that he also did some “on the side” consultancy on private equity deals in the insurance industry earning around US$300,000 per year. The husband said that, in 2012, he came to Grand Cayman to undertake some due diligence work on a company and that he and the wife came to Grand Cayman lots of times to look at that company during that year. They would stay at a company property in Camana Bay. It is evident that he was travelling extensively for work primarily to South Carolina and to Grand Cayman.

8 By the Fall of 2013 it appears that they had both agreed that they wanted to buy a property on the beach in Grand Cayman. In his oral evidence the husband seemed to be saying that the purchase was a joint venture when he commented:

“In early 2014 we agreed that we were going to buy something on the beach.”

The wife submitted that the husband's “unprompted and unsolicited statement…is probably the single most important insight into the core of this dispute”. Although that submission may be a little exaggerated, I accept that the husband's comment is not an unusual or surprising one and it reflects the position that one might ordinarily expect for a married couple, namely that a property was going to be jointly acquired for them both. The husband said that he wanted to purchase a property because he was travelling a great deal to Grand Cayman for business, and he wanted to have a property that he could live in and then rent out to generate an income. He added that his long-term plan was to keep the Cayman property as an asset for rental income. The wife said that, as the husband had been spending more time in Grand Cayman working for a company that had an office here, in her opinion he was based in the Cayman Islands, and she wanted to spend more time with him. She also said that the husband wanted to bring the children to Cayman and that is another reason why they looked for a house.

9 They both viewed a property In West Bay, Grand Cayman. The property was purchased for US$480,000 in 2014, despite the husband saying that the wife did not like the property. That property later became the former matrimonial home (“the FMH”). The husband, at paragraph 12 in his Affidavit sworn on 23 September 2024, wrongly stated that he had used the funds from the sale of Sage Road to finalise the purchase of the FMH. That was clearly a mistake on his behalf, as that sale occurred three years after the purchase of the FMH. The purchase was actually funded by the refinancing of Sage Road, a property which I have found was a matrimonial home and asset prior to its later sale. There was a down payment of US$120,000 4 and a US$360,000 75% mortgage taken out with Cayman National Bank. The FMH was registered in the husband's sole name and the related mortgage with payments of US$3,000 per month was in the husband's sole name. The husband said that a life insurance policy for the mortgage was taken out in his name at a cost to him of US$2,531.40/per annum for eight years (totalling US$20,251.20). He said that the refinancing also enabled him to put in about US$75,000 to make the FMH habitable. The wife said that the registration of the FMH and mortgage arrangements were set up in that manner because the husband chose to manage the entire transaction, including handling the down payment and all associated financial and transactional dealings. The wife said that the husband had all the banking connections.

10 The wife was made redundant by the Houston law firm in around June 2016. The parties said that was because she “did her job too well”, causing a large number of the firm's cases to settle.

11 The wife moved to Grand Cayman in October 2016 and...