[imagesource:valdevie]

A nasty legal battle is playing itself out inside the tranquil millionaire’s compound of Val de Vie. Naturally, the fight is over money and it has everything you would expect from a good ‘lifestyle of the rich and petty’ miniseries.

Our main cast for this season is an unnamed multi-millionaire who has been accused by his ex-wife of spying on her and her new boyfriend by abusing his position as a trustee of the sprawling estate.

The businessman, who is a director at the luxury estate, is set to challenge his liability to pay maintenance to his ex based on the assertion that she is shacking up with her new beau. This according to their divorce agreement, would mean that he is no longer obligated to pay her monthly allowance.

The ex-wife on the other hand claims that her ex is abusing his position, and access to security footage, by spying on her and the new guy’s whereabouts. This, she claims, is an invasion of their privacy and doesn’t prove that she is now ‘co-habiting with another man’.

According to the consent paper finalised before their divorce in 2019, the businessman would pay his ex-wife’s medical expenses, an annual allowance for holidays, and monthly spousal maintenance unless she remarried or lived with another partner for six consecutive months.

According to the ex-hubby, the woman entered into a “serious intimate relationship” within a year after their divorce, and the new guy is now living with her.

In his founding affidavit, he cites Facebook posts; an ostensibly familial WhatsApp group comprising his ex-wife, her boyfriend and their two children; as well as “general and spontaneous conversations” with their son and daughter.

Predictably, the wife says this is nonsense, despite what his prying eyes might have seen on the ill-gotten security footage and entry records to the ‘millionaire’s farm’. According to the ex-wife, he is “unreasonably, unlawfully and unfairly” trying to escape his obligation of paying her maintenance and was taking her to court to “punish” her for insisting that he meet his obligations as per their divorce order, such as delivering her new SUV, golf cart and covering the repairs of her home’s faulty air conditioner.

She explained the frequency of her boyfriend’s check-ins to the estate to be for a variety of reasons – he owns a paint company and regularly does business on the estate, offers training at Val de Vie, and has a brother (the co-director of their company) who is also a resident.

Previous litigation in the lower courts came to nothing as the husband withdrew his application “very shortly before the date of the hearing – the day that he and his new girlfriend left for a trip to Paris, France.”

It’s all terribly cliched ‘he said she said’ vibes, and might possibly make for a so-so season of the ‘Housewives’ franchise. But sitting on the sidelines it just seems like a dirty fight between jilted exes that has now involved their children, domestic worker, and gardener.

If you’re into this sort of litigation, you can follow up on the divorce-styles of the rich and famous in the original article on News24. For everyone else who can’t afford a golf cart of their own, we suggest you carry on with your boring lives outside of the ‘estates’.

[source:news24]