Brief facts of the case

Mr. Wang and Mr. Zhao have always been in good standing in the business field, and the two have many business dealings. One day, Mr. Zhao hurriedly found Mr. Wang, saying that his business was in trouble and he urgently needed capital turnover, and out of trust, Mr. Wang thought that Mr. Zhao would not fail to repay the debt, so he transferred 500,000 yuan to Mr. Zhao's account without saying a word.      

I thought that 500,000 yuan was nothing to Mr. Zhao, and he would repay himself in a short time, but he didn't expect that this delay would be two years. In desperation, Mr. Wang filed a lawsuit in court, and the court ruled that Mr. Zhao should repay Mr. Wang 500,000 yuan plus interest.      

After the judgment took effect, Mr. Zhao still did not repay the money, and Mr. Wang applied to the Executive Board for enforcement and learned that Mr. Zhao had no property in his name that could be used for enforcement. Mr. Wang, who found that something was wrong, inquired and learned that Mr. Zhao had been obsessed with gambling for a long time, and his family was in the middle of the road, and he divorced his wife a year ago. Mr. Wang recalled that Mr. Zhao had mentioned that he owned two properties in the heart of Beijing and that they were very expensive. I also heard that Mr. Zhao's wife and children have recently emigrated abroad, and the children's tuition fees and daily living expenses alone are as high as tens of thousands of yuan per month, how can he have no property to enforce?     

After investigation, it was found that Mr. Zhao and his wife signed an agreement when they divorced, and they "left the house", the two houses belonged to his ex-wife, and the debts belonged to Mr. Zhao himself. As a result, Mr. Wang was furious and filed a lawsuit against the debtor for avoidance with the court.     

During the trial, Mr. Zhao said that he had been divorced for more than a year, and the debt was caused by his gambling and had nothing to do with his ex-wife. Mr. Wang argued that although they were divorced, they divorced by agreement, and the debts in the divorce agreement belonged to Mr. Zhao alone, while most of the property was given to his wife, which was really unfair, so he asked the court to revoke the agreement on the property part of the divorce agreement. Mr. Zhao argued that the ex-wife was not aware of the debt, and that part of the property was the ex-wife's personal property, and part of the property was the compensation paid to the ex-wife due to his fault, which was reasonable, and the divorce agreement was signed voluntarily by both of them, which was legal and valid.

Heard by the courts

 In this case, the debt occurred during the period of the relationship. Mr. Zhao and his wife are equal civil subjects, and they signed the Divorce Agreement to reach consensus on matters such as the dissolution of the marital relationship, child support, property and debt disposal, etc., and the Divorce Agreement is an integral agreement with the dual attributes of person and property, and should be regulated by the Contract Law, marriage and family-related laws and judicial interpretations.     If the distribution of property agreed in the divorce agreement is obviously unreasonable, it will inevitably cause an abnormal decrease in the property of one of the spouses, resulting in a decrease in the ability to repay debts, and then harming the legitimate rights and interests of the creditor, and the creditor may apply to revoke the part of the divorce agreement on property.     

In addition, in this case, one of the houses was the personal property of Mr. Zhao's ex-wife before marriage (house A), so it was not improper for it to be owned by the ex-wife alone, but the other house was purchased during the marriage relationship of the husband and wife (house B), which was the joint property of the husband and wife. Therefore, the house in the divorce agreement was actually a free transfer of the part of the joint property owned by Mr. Zhao to his ex-wife, which objectively reduced the value of Mr. Zhao's property that could be repaid for debts.     

In the end, the court ruled to revoke the agreement on the property distribution of the property in the Divorce Agreement signed between Mr. Zhao and his ex-wife that House B belonged to his ex-wife.

What the judge said

In daily life, some debtors know that they are in debt problems, but still transfer their property through agreements such as improper division through divorce, gratuitous gifts, and low-cost transfers, in an attempt to "leave the house" to escape debts. In the event of such evasion of debts, the creditor may, within the statutory time limit, request the people's court to revoke the property disposal agreement in order to realize its own creditor's rights, but the scope of the exercise of the right of revocation shall be limited to the rights and responsibilities of the creditor.    

Here, it should be reminded that the following conditions must be met for the creditor to exercise the right of avoidance:   

1. The creditor has a legal and valid claim, and the claim is generally for the purpose of payment of property.   

2. The debtor transfers property to another person free of charge or waives its due creditor's rights.    

3. The creditor's claim is impaired by the debtor's gratuitous transfer of property.   

 The creditor's right of avoidance must be exercised within the statutory time limit. First, the creditor knows or should know the reason for revocation and applies for revocation within one year; Second, the application for revocation must be made within five years from the date of the debtor's act.

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