Shares bought by a married person using money owned jointly with their spouse belong to both spouses, according to the Supreme Court of Poland.
The Supreme Court's ruling has resolved the debate whether shares purchased by a married person whose property is owned jointly with his/her spouse should be counted as owned by them alone or jointly with their spouse. Legal doctrine allowed for a number of different possibilities.
The decision that the shares are joint property of the spouses resolves an issue that until now has been very controversial and has important ramifications.
Before 20 January 2005 (the date of a major change in Polish family law), any sale of shares by a married person which (by virtue of this decision) were owned jointly with his/her spouse would have required their spouse's consent if the sale was beyond the scope of ordinary management of joint property.
After 20 January 2005, spouses are entitled to object to any sale of jointly-owned shares by their spouse but their consent was not required. Any objection would nullify the transaction.
It is therefore important to make sure that, if a share sale took place before January 2005, the seller's spouse gave his/her consent and, if a share sale took place after January 2005, the seller's spouse was aware of the share sale and was given a chance to object to it
This article was written for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service. To register for Law-Now, please go to www.law-now.com/law-now/mondaq
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The original publication date for this article was 17/02/2009.
