PETALING JAYA: A non-Muslim wife cannot use a private caveat to prevent her husband from selling a house he bought before their marriage simply because she is claiming a share of it in divorce proceedings, the High Court in Melaka has ruled.
Judicial Commissioner K Raja Segaran said a claim to matrimonial assets did not automatically give a spouse a registrable interest in the property under the National Land Code.
He refused the wife's application to extend a caveat over a house in Taman Paya Rumput Perdana, Alor Gajah, until the conclusion of her divorce proceedings against the husband.
However, he granted her a further 21 days, until Nov 16, to seek an injunction from the divorce court to protect her claim.
The judge said the wife's contributions to the household could be considered when the divorce court decides how the couple’s assets should be divided.
The wife, a primary school teacher, said she had paid for groceries, kitchen appliances and utensils, maintained the home and cared for the family. The couple have teenage sons.
The husband bought the house in 2011, three years before their marriage, and is its sole registered owner.
The family lived there from 2017 until she left with their children in July 2024.
The wife claimed the property as a matrimonial asset in her divorce cross-petition and lodged a private caveat in July 2025 to prevent its sale or transfer.
In his grounds of judgment, Raja Segaran said: "Malaysian land law knows no proprietary right of a spouse, as such, in land registered in the name of the other spouse."
He said the wife’s claim was one for a division of matrimonial assets under the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976, rather than a present ownership interest under the land law.
"The caveat protects interests in land. The 1976 Act protects spouses. The two regimes are not interchangeable," he said.
The judge added that Section 102 of the Act provided a specific remedy for a spouse who feared matrimonial property would be disposed of before the court could divide it.
Raja Segaran ordered the wife to pay the husband RM5,000 in costs.