(File photo) Photo: 123rf.com
A businessman who banished his wife from their family home, and later their teenage son when the marriage was over, has ended up with a fraction of the fortune the couple created together.
Mona Nygaard* left the upmarket family home with little more than a bag of clothes and a small amount of cash after she was ordered out by her husband Oscar Nygaard* who had ditched the company they built together, rendering it worthless.
Now, several years on, the Family Court has ordered that he pay up to recognise her rightful share in what they built, plus compensation.
It has left the man with less than $100,000 from the multimillions they once held in an upmarket home and in the value of their company.
Mona Nygaard told NZME the decision brought a "great sense of relief" that she and her son were now a step closer to being able to move forward.
But John Gandy, one of the lawyers acting for Oscar Nygaard, told NZME the decision was being appealed.
In a decision released in October, Judge Kevin Muir ordered Nygaard to pay his former wife $762,219, which her lawyer Jennie Hawker told NZME was the equivalent of a half share in the relationship property pool.
Judge Muir said it included compensation for the "deliberate reduction in the value of the company".
He also ordered Nygaard to pay $40,000 in compensation for the time he spent living in the home exclusively, as a form of rent, plus an equalisation payment of $265,000 to balance the amounts that he had already taken from the pool of trust funds.
He would have faced a heftier loss if the court had lifted an order suspending Nygaard's maintenance payments to his former wife.
Judge Muir said the judgment was not meant to be punitive; it simply reflected the reality the parties would have been in following their separation if not for Nygaard's decisions.
Marriage on the rocks
There were signs trouble was mounting when Nygaard began what the court described as "revenge spending", removed his wife's access to bank accounts, and then her name as a signatory from a home loan account.
They had been together for more than 25 years, and married for most of that time, and Nygaard had worked hard to build up a company worth $1.7 million, with help from Mona's family.
Months after she was told to leave, Nygaard ordered their teenage son from the home and his new partner moved in before the property sold for $3.6m.
He and his partner then left for another country where they started a new family.
The court has found that Nygaard's actions were deliberate and at times vengeful, in the relationship that was "regrettably punctuated" by what Judge Muir said were occasional incidents of physical violence and a continuing dynamic of psychological violence against Mona Nygaard.
Judge Muir said she did not actively work for the company and was not consulted about either day-to-day or strategic decisions.
He said part of the dynamic of power and control that existed between them included that Nygaard would occasionally insist that what was happening with the company was "none of her business".
When they separated, shares in the company were worth about $1.2m, but were worthless by the time the matter reached court because the company had been wound up.
Nygaard said the loss of the company's value was caused by economic conditions at the time and the impact of stress that he was suffering as a result of the separation.
However, he accepted that he had once told his former wife that he would do what he could to create debt within the company and the trust so that she would receive nothing if they separated.
Judge Muir said the result of the unilateral decision made at his wife's expense was that he abandoned a valuable business causing a significant loss to both him and his wife.
"His actions were deliberate, arguably vengeful, and the diminution in value of the company was clearly also deliberate.
"It was not only an obvious outcome of what he did, it must have been his intended outcome."
Family trust
The home was owned by a family trust, of which Mona was a trustee and the couple's son was the final beneficiary.
They were left living in inferior rental accommodation and had to move several times in the two-and-a-half years after the separation.
The court has now wound up the trust, where the proceeds of the sale of the family home went and from where Nygaard took money.
At one stage he withdrew about $129,000 from the trust's flexible mortgage facility and went on a shopping spree after an argument during a family holiday overseas.
Some of it was used to pay spousal maintenance under an earlier court order.
However, Nygaard no longer had to pay maintenance, given his diminished income since moving overseas and starting a new family.
"It is clear to me that he cannot afford to properly maintain his new family and his existing family," Judge Muir said.
The court's decision factored in company tax debts plus chattels the couple owned in what was described as a well-furnished home.
Mona Nygaard said she did not have a chance to take an inventory of the chattels before her former husband left, but alleged he and his new partner had taken most of them.
She only had access a week before settlement and described the home as "70% empty", and was left to deal with rubbish and clean the house with the help of the real estate agent.
"All the valuable artwork, tools, clothes, kitchen items, furniture, stools, plants and everything of value was gone before they left the country," Judge Muir said.
They have each been allowed to keep their respective KiwiSaver accounts, while Mona will also receive the proceeds of the sale of a Range Rover Sport worth $53,000, plus $5346 that was in her bank account when they separated.
Oscar Nygaard gets to keep company shares, his clothing collection worth an estimated $200,000 plus $55,000 worth of chattels and art that were in the home, and the two paintings he kept worth $8700.
He denied keeping the clothing collection, which was never formally valued, and said he "gave away" tools and materials that were company assets.
Judge Muir said it was clear from the evidence and from what had happened since separation that Mona Nygaard would continue to provide meaningful support for their son, as she has done since the separation.
*Names have been altered in line with Family Court rules.
This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.