The 6th of April 2022 saw the introduction of the long-awaited “No-Fault” divorce after years of campaigning by Resolution and other Family Law lawyers.
The end of fault-based petitions has rightly been lauded as a positive move towards reducing tensions and disputes on marriage breakdown. No lawyer will miss arguing about the minor details of alleged “unreasonable behaviour”. The new system is a huge step forward. Time will tell if the reform will lead to fewer and less intense disputes. What is clear is that the new law is not without issues which lay clients will need to be aware of and have advice about.
Concerns surrounding no-fault divorce
There are also several areas of concern created by the new law:-
Delay – No-fault divorce is essentially divorce by service of a notice that one party believes the marriage has irretrievably broken down. The statutory “cooling off” periods lead to a minimum timescale of 6 months to end a marriage. This is considerably longer than the old system.
More Cost – It is now necessary to pay the Court an increased fee of £593 to start a divorce application, and there may be additional court fees to pay on top of the cost of legal advice. Whilst it is possible to start a “Joint Application”, there is no official mechanism for parties to share the court fee. Dispute over service of the Application may involve further fees. The new system expects parties not to apply for costs orders, although there remains a route for applying for one party to pay towards legal costs, but this involves even more Court fees.
Service – All divorce applications must be served within 28 days of the start of proceedings. It is possible in theory to extend time for service, but there is not much clarity on how this will work or what happens if an application is served out of time or if such an application is refused. The new system also potentially allows for one spouse to be unaware for months that a divorce application has been made and may act against their own financial interest in that time.
Blocking Final Orders – Under section 10(2) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, it was possible to delay the making of decree absolute until all financial issues were resolved but only where a petition was based on 2 or 5 years’ separation. This has now been extended to all cases. This is a useful way to protect the client’s interests but may well lead to more disputes and bad feelings.
Less Legal Advice – The new law and its terminology are now more readily understandable. Applications can be started online in a matter of minutes. This is an advance in access to justice but even divorcing couples who agree on how to split their assets are still faced with the complexity of drafting financial consent orders, the financial application Form A, and the expanded D81. For those who cannot agree will be faced with slower Courts and the disappearance of legal aid. For the vulnerable and financially weaker spouses, they may well feel railroaded into a divorce and forced to agree to poor outcomes.
Any person contemplating ending a marriage or civil partnership will still find that they will gain much by obtaining experienced and specialist legal advice. All of our family Team are members of Resolution.
No Fault Divorce Solicitors Guildford
For more information or specialist legal advice on no-fault divorce, please contact our family team at our Guildford office on 01483 451900, email us at sols@gordonsols.co.uk or make an online enquiry here.