Should privacy or transparency have priority in the family court? The President of the family courts launched a consultation paper last week asking for responses on the role of the media in reporting family cases. As part of his report,…
Spousal maintenance: children change everything
If you consider spousal maintenance as a salary for a former spouse, you can appreciate that, just as you can have a zero hours contract or a fixed term contract or many other different types of legal arrangements in place…
10 surprising facts about modern divorce in the UK
1. Fewer married couples are getting divorced. In 2012 (the most recent year for which we have data) the divorce rate was 10.8 per thousand married population. The divorce rate has been stable since 2008. This is the lowest rate…
Will my spouse pay for my divorce?
Whilst the usual scenario is that each spouse meets their own legal costs, it is possible to seek a financial contribution from your husband or wife towards fees. Part 1: the divorce costs The court may order a Respondent to…
The top 5 divorce misconceptions
1. That you might not have sufficient grounds to divorce There is only one ground for divorce – that there has been an irretrievable breakdown in the relationship. This is proven with a fact, and there are five facts available…
Do I have grounds for divorce?
We still have a fault based divorce system in this country. This does not mean that divorcing spouses must hire private investigators and submit video footage definitively proving infidelity to a court in order to secure a divorce. It does…
International divorce: one million EU divorces a year
As Eurovision concludes for another year, and with European Parliamentary elections due to take place across Europe over the next three days, you may be interested to know that you have the opportunity to vote in a third European poll…
Will my maintenance increase with inflation? A guide to “index linking”
A recent research paper* has found that from a sample of 369 final financial orders in divorce, only 8 contained an order for “joint lives maintenance”, which is a sum of maintenance to be paid for life from one spouse…
Can appropriate reviews make prenuptial agreements stick?
Katie Rainscourt, our managing partner, has recently been interviewed by Lexis on the topic of prenuptial agreements, which is reproduced below. This article was first published on Lexis®PSL Family on 13 March 2014. Click here for a free 24h…
What happens to our pensions on divorce? Think pension sharing orders
Yesterday’s budget announcements by George Osborne has focussed many minds today on their pension pots, and what the new greater flexibility may mean for them. The question of what happens to pensions on divorce though does not appear to…