This guide is written for solicitors, trainees and law students in England and Wales.
Illiquid assets in financial remedy cases are now governed by two recent authorities doing different jobs. Standish settles what is available for sharing. Culligan settles how a risk-laden asset is shared once it is in the pot, holding that no principle confines Wells sharing to a last resort or a minority element of an award.
Who this explainer is for
Financial remedy practitioners dealing with private company shareholdings, and anyone drafting a schedule where the matrimonial pot is dominated by assets that cannot be realised on demand. It assumes familiarity with the section 25 exercise and does not cover needs or compensation beyond where they intersect with sharing.
Why is equal by value not always equal?
Two spouses can receive identical headline sums and carry very different risk. Cash is worth its face value on the day. A minority holding in a private company is worth an expert’s opinion of what someone might pay for it, at a date nobody can predict, assuming a buyer exists.
Splitting the schedule down the middle by value therefore answers only one question. It says who holds what. It does not say who carries the risk that the valuation is wrong, or that realisation never happens.
The answer developed for this is Wells sharing, from Wells v Wells [2002] EWCA Civ 476. The risk-laden assets are divided in specie, so both parties share the outcome rather than one taking the certainty and the other the risk.
Where the sharing principle comes from
The rule that only matrimonial property is shared was established in Miller v Miller; McFarlane v McFarlane [2006] UKHL 24. Matrimonial property is typically what is earned or built during the marriage. Non-matrimonial property is what was held beforehand, or received by gift or inheritance from outside the marriage.
The term matrimonialisation came later, coined by Roberts J in WX v HX [2021] EWHC 24 to describe non-matrimonial assets becoming matrimonial. Standish settled that it is neither a narrow nor an expansive concept, and that the question is how the parties have dealt with the asset and whether that shows they treated it as shared between them.
What does Standish decide?
Standish v Standish [2025] UKSC 26, handed down on 2 July 2025, was the first financial remedies case in the Supreme Court for close to twenty years. It answers the prior question: what is capable of being shared at all.
The sharing principle applies only to matrimonial property. The distinction between matrimonial and non-matrimonial property turns on the source of the asset, not the title in which it is held. Matrimonialisation depends on how the parties dealt with the asset over time and whether that shows they treated it as shared between them. A transfer into a spouse’s name does not by itself matrimonialise anything, and a transfer made for tax reasons will not normally do so.
On the facts, a husband had transferred investments worth approximately £77.8 million to his wife in 2017 as part of inheritance tax planning. The Supreme Court held those assets had not been matrimonialised. Equal division remains the appropriate and principled starting position for matrimonial property, with departures permitted where justified, and non-matrimonial property stays exposed to claims based on need and compensation.
What does Culligan add?
Culligan v Rosemin-Culligan [2026] EWCA Civ 948, handed down on 24 July 2026 and reported at [2026] WLR(D) 419, takes the next step. Moylan LJ gave the lead judgment, with Coulson and Arnold LJJ agreeing. Moylan LJ had also given the leading Court of Appeal judgment in Standish.
MacDonald J had divided the parties’ capital equally by value after a 40-year marriage, giving each about £13.7m net. The structure was uneven: 70% of the husband’s share was illiquid against 30% of the wife’s, the illiquid element being shares in a private company valued at £19m gross. The judge fixed the extent of Wells sharing at 30%.
The Court of Appeal held he had been led into error by his reading of Versteegh v Versteegh [2018] EWCA Civ 1050. He had treated it as establishing that Wells sharing should be a “last resort” comprising only a “minority element” of an award. That formulation came from a passage of Mostyn J quoted without endorsement by Lewison LJ, not from the ratio. No such principle exists. Nor is there a countervailing principle making Wells sharing the default.
What remains is Martin v Martin [2018] EWCA Civ 2866: a broad evaluative exercise directed at a fair balance of risk and illiquidity, with no percentage ceiling to work back from. On the facts the court increased the wife’s contingent entitlement from 30% to 50%.
Mechanically, Wells sharing can be effected either by transferring shares so that both parties hold them, or by a contingent lump sum payable on realisation. Culligan used the latter, varying the wife’s contingent entitlement to 50% of the value received from the shares. The choice matters. A share transfer gives the recipient rights against the company and a seat at whatever table exists. A contingent entitlement gives them a claim against their former spouse and nothing else.
Liquid and illiquid assets compared
| Consideration | Liquid assets | Illiquid assets |
|---|---|---|
| Value on the schedule | Realisable at or near face value | An expert opinion of a hypothetical price |
| Who carries valuation risk | Nobody, in practical terms | Whoever holds the asset, unless shared in specie |
| Timing of realisation | Known | Uncertain, and may never occur |
| Effect of an equal split by value | Equal outcome | Potentially unequal outcome, depending on the mix each party takes |
| Mechanism for fairness | Straight division | Wells sharing, dividing the risk-laden asset in specie |
| Extent of Wells sharing | Not applicable | No ceiling and no floor; a broad evaluative exercise under Martin |
| Relevant comparison | Not applicable | Whether the asset is more illiquid than what it replaced, not illiquid in the abstract |
Where the matrimonial pot is mostly shares in a private company, the schedule has to say who carries the risk of realisation, and an equal split by value does not answer that. Culligan removes a ceiling practitioners had been arguing to: a party seeking substantial in specie sharing no longer has to overcome a supposed rule that it should be exceptional and small. A judge limiting the extent of Wells sharing now needs a reason grounded in the evidence rather than a formulation lifted from Versteegh.
How do the two authorities fit together?
Run them in sequence. Standish first: is the asset matrimonial property, judged by source rather than title, and has anything happened over time to matrimonialise what began as non-matrimonial? Only what survives that stage is available for sharing.
Culligan second: given what is in the pot, how should the risk and illiquidity within it be distributed? That is a broad evaluative exercise, not the application of a cap.
Keeping the stages separate matters because the arguments differ. The first is about source, dealings and intention. The second is about risk, realisability and the comparison between what the asset is now and what it replaced.
Drafting the schedule: what to address
- Classify before you divide. Identify matrimonial and non-matrimonial property by source, and set out any matrimonialisation argument on how the parties dealt with the asset over time.
- Separate value from realisability. Show the valuation and, separately, what would have to happen for the holder to receive cash.
- State the proportion of each party’s award that is illiquid, not just the totals. That comparison is what exposed the problem in Culligan.
- Run the comparison against the predecessor asset where the holding has changed form during the marriage. The question is whether it is more illiquid or riskier than what it replaced.
- Justify the extent of any Wells sharing on the evidence, not by reference to a supposed norm.
- Fix percentages that hold whatever a future sale achieves where a balancing payment depends on one. In Culligan the husband takes 40.4% of the net proceeds of the former matrimonial home irrespective of sale price, which allocates market risk in fixed proportions rather than leaving it to be argued about later.
Common mistakes
Arguing that Wells sharing must be exceptional. That submission is now wrong. So is the opposite submission that it is standard.
Treating title as the classification test. Standish makes source determinative, and a transfer between spouses does not by itself matrimonialise an asset.
Assessing illiquidity in the abstract. The court in Culligan asked whether the shares were more illiquid than the holding they replaced, and found they were not.
Reintroducing a rejected conduct finding. A conduct allegation dismissed at one stage cannot resurface as the reason for unequal risk allocation at another.
Leaving realisation risk unallocated. If the schedule does not say who bears it, the order will be interpreted at the point it becomes expensive.
Official sources
- Find Case Law for the full text of Culligan v Rosemin-Culligan [2026] EWCA Civ 948
- ICLR WLR Daily report at [2026] WLR(D) 419
- Standish v Standish on the Supreme Court case pages
Our case note is at Wells sharing is no last resort. For the other family change in force this summer, see rule 25.5A on regulated experts in children proceedings.
Date last updated
4 August 2026. Culligan was handed down on 24 July 2026 and has not yet been applied at first instance. This page will be updated when it is.