|
||||
| Latest News |
|---|
| E-Book |
|---|
|
Need more help finding your way through the Divorce Solicitor Traps? Download our Guide HOW TO NEGOTIATE THE DIVORCE SOLICITOR TRAP now!  Purchase Now £5 |
| Archive |
|---|
| Newsletter |
|---|
|
Subscribe here!
|
| News | ||
|---|---|---|
|
| Quick Survey |
|---|
FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER
divorce-solicitor-trap.co.uk
…the site to save you
MAINTENANCE AND GENDER: A Bitter Calculation
Unreasonable behaviour: one of the most widely cited grounds for divorce. Why? Because it’s easy to prove? Perhaps. It is after all always possible for a spouse to deny adultery, the other reason for calling it a day, and it takes a good deal of hard evidence to prove. But best remember that England and Wales operate a ‘no blame’ system when it comes to divorce. A divorce – whatever your solicitor or your spouse’s solicitor may say – is granted by the court without pronouncement of blame. So, nobody wants to know about blame except for ourselves, of course. But what about the finances? Well, that’s when things start to get a little complicated.
This is what the law says:
(a) the income, earning capacity, property and other financial resources which each of the parties to the marriage has or is likely to have in the foreseeable future, including in the case of earning capacity any increase in that capacity which it would in the opinion of the court be reasonable to expect a party to the marriage to take steps to acquire;
(b) the financial needs, obligations and responsibilities which each of the parties to the marriage has or is likely to have in the foreseeable future;
(c) the standard of living enjoyed by the family before the breakdown of the marriage; (d) the age of each party to the marriage and the duration of the marriage;
(e) any physical or mental disability of either of the parties to the marriage;
(f) the contributions which each of the parties has made or is likely in the foreseeable future to make to the welfare of the family, including any contribution by looking after the home or caring for the family;
(g) the conduct of each of the parties, if that conduct is such that it would in the opinion of the court be inequitable to disregard it;
(h) the value to each of the parties to the marriage of any benefit which, by reason of the dissolution of the marriage, that party will lose the chance of acquiring.
But in spite of these points, which appear thorough, there is something very, very wrong about the way that justice is delivered in a courtroom for the purposes of granting ancillary relief, or separating jointly owned assets. For while it may in some cases be appropriate to take this range of factors into consideration when making a judgement about financial awards in court, the balance of payment is in the end decided on the basis of subjective evaluation. This means that one judge’s decision can be completely different to another’s. He can ruin each person’s day a different way every time. The way the above guidelines are interpreted and applied is a matter for the judge to decide.
Consequently, the parties must struggle – with or without barristers present - to prove their position, and the struggle leads the parties further and further into the mire of the Divorce Solicitor Trap.Until as recently as 2001 the courts viewed ancillary relief as a way of ensuring that the wife’s financial requirements would be met in the future on a reasonable basis in line with the lifestyle she had enjoyed thus far in the marriage. Any superfluous income or investments were not split equally between the two parties. While attitudes have changed, the question of financial awards remains thorny and the lack of definite guidelines means that courts have become a battle ground, with one party often embittered by a decision he/she does not agree with. Add to this, questions of gender – men who feel that their wives expect a ‘meal ticket for life’ – women who are left with a maintenance payment they cannot collect without a battle - and nobody goes away satisfied.
The debate on the need for a new system of division is overdue. New guidelines or solutions are needed if we are to see an end to the kind of needless acrimony generated in cases like McCartney vs. Mills. Can someone please invent a new calculation for this seemingly impossible division before the courts lose track of what 1 + 1 actually is?
If you have a view on the subject of this month's newsletter, please send your comments to:
info@divorce-solicitor-trap.co.uk or use our GENERAL ENQUIRIES page
| Articles | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| Contact us | ||
|---|---|---|
|