| Short Title: | Matrimonial Homes Act 1967 |
| Type: | Act |
| Parliament: | Parliament of the United Kingdom |
| Year: | 1967 |
| Citation: | 1967 c. 75 |
| Status: | repealed |
The Matrimonial Homes Act 1967 (c. 75) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom designed to reverse the House of Lords decision in National Provincial Bank Ltd v Ainsworth [1965] AC 1175, where it ruled that a deserted wife had no right to stay in the family home.
Under Lord Denning's decision in Bendall v McWhirter [1952] 2 QB 466, a deserted wife occupying the marital home had a personal licence to stay there.[1] The decision provoked disapproval among the judiciary and from the public; a correspondent wrote:
The House of Lords effectively nullified Denning's work with the case National Provincial Bank Ltd v Ainsworth [1965] AC 1175 in 1965, which ruled that the deserted wife had no licence to stay.[2] The Act was primarily aimed at reversing this decision, and to this end it states that where one person has the right to occupy a property and his spouse does not, the spouse can occupy the property if it has been used as the marital home. The spouse can only be evicted with a court order, and the court can grant her the right to occupy the house if she is not in occupation at the time of the desertion.[3] This state of affairs can continue until the marriage ceases to subsist, either by divorce or by the death of the partner with the property right.[4] The Act was given royal assent on 27 July 1967.[5] It was repealed by the Matrimonial Homes Act 1983 and the County Courts Act 1984.[6]