A scientist who was forced to move back in with her parents during a divorce battle with her multi-millionaire husband has won a court fight for a share of the £1 million marital home.
Imperial College London immunologist Dr Katia De Filippo said she was “desperate” for the Shepherd’s Bush house to be sold so she could find a permanent home for her and her young daughter, but was blocked by former partner Luca Manetta laying claim to the whole property.
Dr De Filippo said that while she and her daughter had been surviving on her “modest” academic wage while staying with her elderly parents, Mr Manetta — a “man of considerable means” — had been flying between London and his home in Italy.
Judge Michael Kent QC, sitting at Central London county court, has now ruled that the property ownership is shared, paving the way for it to be sold.
The judge said he was not convinced by Mr Manetta’s claim that the couple put the home in both of their names only to “protect it from fraudsters in Italy”. He instead ruled it was “bought as a family home at the outset”. “It was intended from the outset to be their home in London, where Dr De Filippo at least had been living for some time and where it was expected she would remain and where they did stay for a number of years,” he said.
“No doubt the investment potential of the property was an attractive feature of it, but most young couples buying a house to live in hope also that it will prove to be a good investment.”
The court heard the couple married in 2006 when Dr De Filippo, now a British citizen, was researching her PhD at Cancer Research UK in London, and they bought the marital home in 2009.
Mr Manetta, an electronics developer and property manager who inherited a fortune from an uncle, put £540,000 into the purchase of the house, with the rest funded by a loan secured against bonds also bought with his uncle’s money. Dr De Filippo said it was always intended to be the family home, telling the court: “We wanted to stay here, live here and have a family here.” The couple split in 2016 and have been “judicially separated” by a court in Turin. Divorce proceedings in the UK are ongoing.
Dr De Filippo’s barrister, Sally Jackson, said the battle was not driven by money but by mother and daughter “desperately needing somewhere to live”.
Mr Manetta claimed the property had been bought as an investment that was his alone. Ruling against him, Judge Kent said: “Mr Manetta may have himself thought he would somehow always be able to lay claim to the whole of the property or the proceeds of its sale.
“Whether he did or not have that belief however, I am quite unable to find that it was an understanding shared by Dr De Filippo.”
