A departmental policy that stipulated that foreign persons of the same sex could not be given a permit to purchase immovable property together led to two women buying a house in the name of only one of them eventually giving rise to a court case between them.
Erika Menestret filed a case in the Gozo courts against Brigitte Simsch in which she requested the court to declare that the house in San Lawrenz, Gozo which had been purchased by Ms Simsch was in fact half hers.
Magistrate Josette Demicoli heard that the two women had started an intimate relationship while living in Germany in 1981. They became familiar with Gozo and decided to set up home there. In 1988 they bought a house at 2, Tower Street, San Lawrenz.
Ms Menestret told the court that they could not acquire the property in their joint names. One reason for this was that Ms Menestret was still married to Claus Menestret (since deceased) and, therefore, her husband would have automatically acquired rights over the property. The second reason was that, at that time, government policy did not allow for the issue of a permit to acquire immovable property (known as an AIP permit) to two persons of the same sex.
According to Ms Menestret, the parties had decided that the property was to be acquired in the sole name of Ms Simsch even though the parties intended to co-own the property in equal shares between them.
Ms Menestret added that she had financed one half of the purchase price of the house and had also contributed to the furnishing of the house.
On her part Ms Simsch denied the allegations against her and told the court that Ms Menestret had merely loaned her a sum of money towards the purchase of the house. According to Ms Simsch, it was never the intention of the parties to purchase the house jointly.
The Court heard testimony from the government department responsible for the issue of an AIP permit.
According to this, there was a department policy that persons of the same sex and who were foreigners were not given an AIP permit to purchase property. This was merely a policy and there was nothing in the law which prohibited the issue of an AIP permit to two foreigners of the same sex. At the time it was more of a moral rather than a legal issue.
The court added that the parties' relationship ended in 2007.
Witnesses heard by the court testified that both women had claimed that the house belonged to the two of them and that there was no loan agreement between them.
The court, therefore, ruled in favour of Ms Menestret and decided that one half share of the San Lawrenz property belonged to her. The defendant was ordered to transfer half of the property to Ms Menestret.