A story in this masthead on Monday has sparked fierce debate around dinner tables across the country. It recounted a sad tale of ruptured love, broken dreams, alleged infidelity and abuse, and a legal squabble over who gets to keep a two-carat engagement ring.
In the County Court of Victoria, Constantinos Hatzis is demanding his former fiancee Anastasia Soulios return a two-carat diamond ring and other jewellery worth more than $100,000.
Con Hatzis and former fiancee Anastasia Soulios.
Soulios has claimed in defence documents that Hatzis was unfaithful during their two-year relationship and repeatedly subjected her to abuse, which absolves her of any legal obligation to hand back the ring.
I sought the opinion of a family court lawyer with extensive experience dealing with marital breakdowns about who might triumph in the case of the bling ring.
“It’s a very bad look to go before a judge and demand the ring back ... courts don’t like that.” She suggested both parties should agree that any gifted jewellery was that, a gift, and “leave the rings where they lie”.
Let’s tap into another opinion. What would the Hollywood star, Elizabeth Taylor, who was engaged 10 times and married eight, reckon? Her flashiest ring, the Krupp diamond, was given to her by Richard Burton. A gift and not an official engagement ring, it weighed in at a finger-bolstering 33.2 carats and is estimated to be worth about $US10 million ($15 million) in today’s money.
So, what did Liz do with the dozens of rings, brooches, bracelets and other pieces of jewellery she accumulated over the course of her peripatetic marital career? Easy. She kept them all and even wrote a book about her favourite pieces. Following her death in 2011, the legendary collection was auctioned off, fetching more than $US156 million ($235 million).
So, a family lawyer and a movie star concur – err on the side of gifts being kept by their recipients. But what’s this psychologist’s view? What do I think our tawdry tale tells us about relationship split-ups and how to navigate them emotionally?
To have and to hold: When an engagement goes belly up, who gets to keep the ring?
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07.05.2024
A story in this masthead on Monday has sparked fierce debate around dinner tables across the country. It recounted a sad tale of ruptured love, broken dreams, alleged infidelity and abuse, and a legal squabble over who gets to keep a two-carat engagement ring.
In the County Court of Victoria, Constantinos Hatzis is demanding his former fiancee Anastasia Soulios return a two-carat diamond ring and other jewellery worth more than $100,000.
Con Hatzis and former fiancee Anastasia Soulios.
Soulios has........
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