The woman was unsuccessful in a bid to have her $50,000 engagement ring returned from her former partner.

A woman's attempt to nullify a relationship agreement and get her $50,000 engagement ring back has been thrown out by a judge.

The Hawke's Bay couple, who cannot be named, both had children from previous marriages and began their relationship in early 2010.They got engaged later that year.

The man subsequently had his lawyer prepare an agreement under the Property (Relationships) Act 1976, outlining the assets each had brought into the relationship and could retain if they were separated.

The couple separated, and in 2014 the woman filed an application to the Family Court to set the agreement aside.

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A Judge heard her application last year and dismissed it. The woman appealed that decision and the appeal was heard by Justice Woolford in the High Court at Napier last month.

The woman said she the Family Court judge failed to take into account sums she had paid to the man, and she believed she should have been able to keep her $50,000 engagement ring.

While the agreement had made it clear that the man would retain ownership of the ring, the original ring had been lost and the man had replaced it with a second ring of the same value. Because the ring was replaced after the agreement was signed, and because the agreement only applied to the first ring, she should have been allowed to keep the second one, she said.

The woman also said the Family Court judge had found the man had abused her during their relationship, but had wrongly assumed that she could have left the relationship if she wanted.

She said the man had been abusive and she had signed the agreement under duress. On that basis it should be voidable, she said.

Justice Woolford said the Family Court had heard from a relationship counsellor used by the couple and the counsellor said both had been physically violent with each other and both had limited insight into the psychological abuse they inflicted on each other.

He said the Family Court judge accepted the woman may have been under "significant pressure" to sign the agreement, but it was within bounds as set out in legislation.

As for the ring, Justice Woolford said it was an implied term of the agreement that any replacement ring would remain the property of the man.

"Obviously, the parties did not contemplate the loss of the first engagement ring, but if asked they would have agreed that a second ring should be treated in the same way as the first. There is no reason why they should be differentiated," he said.

Woolford said the Family Court judge had not made an error and the appeal was dismissed.

"The process by which the agreement was drafted and signed was fully compliant with the procedural requirements of the Property (Relationships) Act and provided certainty insofar as the respective property interests of the parties were concerned," he said.