B.C. man who 'abandoned' wife and children gets nothing from house sale

A Penticton man who "abandoned" his wife and children for his bookkeeper was entitled to nothing after the family home was forced to be sold to cover his debts. 

In a recently published Supreme Court decision, Justice Gary Weatherill found that Bernd Zoeller was entitled to none of the net proceeds of the sale of the house he once shared with his wife Alexandra Zoeller.

According to the April 25 judgment, the two had been married for more than two decades, before Bernd abruptly left the house to move in with his bookkeeper while Alexandra and their three children were on a trip to Germany in 2013. 

A year later, Bernd declared bankruptcy, due to debts accumulated by his failed auto mechanic business. 

The house Alexandra resided in was sold in 2024, to pay off a number of debts that were accumulated when the Zoellers were living together, which left $338,000 in a trust pending the court's decision on how it should be split.

The question of whether an equal split would be significantly unfair, the judgment reads, was simply, "Yes."

Justice Weatherill noted that Alexandra had been solely responsible for paying down the family debt, mortgage on the home, utilities, insurance and property taxes. 

"I conclude it would be manifestly unjust and significantly unfair in these circumstances not to order an unequal division," Justice Weatherill wrote. 

In deciding how much of the proceeds should go to Alexandra, the Justice broke down how much Bernd would have paid in debts, which would have left just more than $33,500 as his share, without considering any potential child support that was never paid. 

Bernd tried to argue that his bankruptcy had cleared $263,000 of the family debt, which he should get credit for when considering the distribution of proceeds.  

Justice Weatherill rejected that argument for having no precedents or merit.

"Given his position that he was unable to work, I suspect none of his creditors received anything," Weatherill wrote. "As an analogy, his argument is akin to a situation where a family debt lapses due to an intervening limitation period and the party owing the debt asserts that he/she gets credit for paying it."

The Justice noted that Bernd had also inherited his new partner's home after she died in 2019, while Alexandra had been forced to sell her home. 

"On balance, and taking everything into account, I cannot come to any other conclusion but to find that the respondent be entitled to 100 per cent of the Net Proceeds to the exclusion of the claimant," Weatherill wrote. "In my view, and keeping an eye on the parties' different levels of net worth, it would be manifestly unfair for the claimant to benefit from the Family Home鈥檚 appreciation given that he abandoned both the property and the family."

The Justice also awarded Alexandra her legal costs.