Before divorcing, the husband traded stocks and squandered over one million yuan on tips and lavish spending. The court held that this should be treated as property to be divided between the parties; therefore, the final settlement should be made on the basis of more paid back and less to be topped up.

Beijing News, citing a report (by Zhang Jingshu): On March 31, the People’s Court of Pinggu District, Beijing, held a press briefing on news related to divorce dispute cases. It disclosed judicial data from the past three years and released six典型 cases. In one case, after the husband and wife separated, without the wife’s consent, the husband used a large amount of marital joint property—including proceeds from the sale of a house and housing provident fund— to speculate in stocks and for losses and online tipping and rewards, totaling more than 1.3 million yuan. The court held that the man’s conduct constituted squandering marital joint property, seriously damaging the spouse’s rights and interests. Ultimately, the court’s judgment creatively treated the amount squandered by the husband as property that he had already received, and all remaining marital property of equal value was awarded entirely to the wife.

A reporter from Beijing News learned that in March 2008, Fan (male) and Wang (female) registered their marriage. Starting in October 2022, due to marital discord, the two began living separately. Before and after the separation, Fan possessed more than 900,000 yuan from the house sale proceeds, more than 200,000 yuan in separation compensation, and extracted more than 300,000 yuan of housing provident fund. In November 2024, Fan filed for divorce on the grounds that the marital relationship had broken down irretrievably. Wang requested division of the aforementioned marital joint property. After verification by the court, it was found that after the couple separated, Fan incurred more than 800k yuan in losses from stock trading and spent 500k yuan on online tipping and rewards.

After trial, the court held that the house sale proceeds, separation compensation, and housing provident fund held by Fan were all marital joint property. He used large sums of money to trade stocks without Wang’s consent and suffered losses, and also spent large sums of money on online tipping and rewards. This clearly exceeded the needs of everyday household life, and thus fell under the category of squandering marital joint property, infringing upon Wang’s rights to marital joint property. The court ultimately ruled that the property of more than 1.3 million yuan squandered by Fan would be treated as the property he had already received, and that all remaining existing marital joint property of equal value would be awarded to Wang.

The court stated that marital joint property, in nature, belongs to jointly held property. When disposing of jointly held property, spouses should negotiate on an equal basis and reach an agreement; no party may, against the will of the other party, handle it on their own. Especially when making major changes to jointly held property, the consent of the other party should be obtained; otherwise, it infringes on the other party’s ownership of the jointly held property. When one spouse squanders marital joint property, during the division of marital joint property upon divorce, that spouse may receive less or none. In specific handling, the squandered property should be treated as the share of property that the spouse who squandered it has received, while the other spouse’s entitled share should be offset by other marital joint property. If the offset is insufficient, the difference should be compensated to the other party by the spouse who hid, transferred, sold, destroyed, or squandered the property by valuing the squandered property and paying the difference.

Editor: Peng Chong; Proofreader: Li Lijun