Malta. Holiday destination, Mediterranean island, World War II strategic stronghold, where Gladiator was filmed and Oliver Reed died. Also, the only EU country where divorce is not allowed.
That could change though after a referendum at the end of May 2011 saw nearly three-quarters of the electorate vote “yes” to divorce laws being introduced. The poll was non-binding so the Government hasn’t committed to change, but Prime Minster Lawrence Gonzi conceded “now it is our duty to see that the will of the majority is respected”.
The fact that divorce has been banned in majority-Catholic Malta to date does beg a few questions. Is everyone happily married? Is the marriage rate lower? Is there a high level of cohabitation? Is there a black market in divorces? I suspect we could guess at some of the answers. What can people do currently though if there is an irretrievable breakdown in the marriage?
Well the options were to apply for a legal separation through the courts (not sure whether this would allow the parties to marry again), or seek a lengthy, complex Church annulment, or get divorced abroad.
Luckily, if you are a British ex-pat living there, you are likely to still be able to use the English legal system to divorce. This holds true for thousands of ex-pats across the world, provided you are “domiciled” in the UK. This is a legal point that takes into account where you were born and grew up, where you are currently living and any future plans. An experienced family lawyer will be able to advise on this but if you have been habitually living in the UK for much of your life, there should be no problem.
Using the English legal system is often much quicker, cheaper and more effective than attempting to use the local jurisdiction and in many instances expats are prevented from doing so – as in Malta!
Anyway, going back to my original point. I am pleased that it seems people in Malta are now coming into line with the rest of the world and taking the sensible view that not all couples will always get on and so divorce is a necessary evil, whether it is backed by the Prime Minster or not. Incidentally, Chile was the last country to legalise divorce in 2004. That leaves just one other country in the world where divorce is banned (not including Vatican City). Can you tell me which one?
Andrew Woolley
Family Solicitor
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A warning for over-enthusiastic divorce lawyers this week. Please read slowly and carefully because it’s difficult to keep up with the twists and turns on this one.
In what was billed as a test case, celebrity chef Marco Pierre-White has won a (very) public apology from his wife’s divorce lawyers. The couple are still married after rekindling their romance last Christmas following three years of bitter feuding in the divorce courts.
The multi-millionaire chef decided to sue his wife’s legal team for “dirty tricks” during the proceedings, which included taking personal correspondence, some relating to his finances. The case was thrown out by the High Court in 2008, but reinstated by the Court of Appeal in 2009. Last week it was announced they had reached an out-of-court settlement, including the embarrassing apology. It is believed that White’s legal fees have also been paid and a chunk of the fees owed by his wife to the solicitors written off.
I think that is about as succinct a summary as I can muster. The Telegraph has a more detailed version. We also included a piece on the case in our newsletter last year.
The “dirty tricks” relate to advice given to wife Mati to intercept her husband’s personal post to the family home she stayed living in to discover more about his assets. However, this practice has now effectively been outlawed by a Court of Appeal decision last year.
There are two points I want to highlight on this. One, it is good that our industry makes it possible for people to challenge the legal system if they believe they have been unfairly treated – and that they will get a fair hearing. Marco-Pierre White may have greater means than most to mount a challenge but it sends the message that over-zealous solicitors are not a law unto themselves and that right will out. Rules can be changed.
Two, I think it sends a message to family lawyers about the type of advice we should give and how we should behave. Divorce is difficult, divorce is not nice for anyone involved, divorce is something to be avoided if possible. However, advising clients to employ underhand means to get one over on their estranged spouse – particularly in cases like this where the settlement is likely to have been substantial without digging around to see if anything is hidden – can only add to the adversity and difficulty of a separation.
The public apology is humiliating for the solicitors involved – but advocating practices of this kind is embarrassing for the whole profession. Hopefully this episode will see an end to it.
Andrew Woolley
Family Solicitor
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Divorce and EastEnders. What a dreadful union. I am not an avid viewer of soaps and my limited knowledge of EastEnders suggests it is regarded as having a fairly depressing outlook on life with sensationalist storylines. I did then fear the worst when I heard that a divorce storyline was central to episodes last week (w/c May 16). After watching Tuesday’s episode when Ian and Jane “fight it out” at the divorce court, I had my head in my hands, not simply because of the rather depressing content of the whole episode but also because of the depiction of the divorce process. It was as if all the efforts of forward thinking family lawyers over the past 15 years had been wasted.
It seemed to play up to many of the stereotypes that have been linked to divorce – and divorce lawyers – over the years that we try so hard to distance ourselves from: the aggressive lawyers out to get everything they can, the grasping estranged spouse, the joy at having outdone your other half, the last minute change of heart and reneging on a deal, underhand dealings on disclosure of earnings etc. The list goes on.
Would it be so difficult for the BBC to take a more constructive approach? They have an audience of millions and could be a powerful force for conveying positive messages about a range of things. Instead, they chose the opposite path.
The way it was presented did nothing for our profession and again peddled this view of divorce as having to be combative with the parties out to fleece their other half.
I guess it did highlight some of the things not to do. It is not a great idea to take advice from friends, however well meaning. Seek out an experienced family solicitor and take advice from them. It also showed the importance of getting a reliable recommendation – Jane says at one point Phil recommended her lawyer “’cos he’s an attack dog!”. Not the best choice for a constructive and swift settlement, which would ultimately save everyone time and money.
In reality, disclosure in advance of any hearing would have meant that Jane didn’t get to the court and hear for the first time that Ian has no money. These things are assessed in advance by solicitors, leading to both parties able to attend the hearing with a clear view on what the real assets are, although there are cases where clients try to hide assets and they usually get found out.
I must also have missed the reference to mediation. In many cases, since April 6 when the new Family Procedure Rules came in, this would be the first step for a couple looking to reach a settlement.
I guess the episode did show – though in perhaps an unrealistically short space of time – the range of emotions that a person can go through when settling a divorce: anger, pain, regret, revenge. I just wish the producers could have shown proceedings in a more constructive – and positive light. Divorce doesn’t have to be a battle.
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Divorce is rarely funny, so I think it is a real testament to our British sense of humour that we can find things to laugh about in separation. These days, you are as likely to hear a comedian joke about pre-nups or division of assets as tell tales about the mother in law.
Listening to The Unbelievable Truth on Radio 4 the other day really brought this home to me. The popular show, chaired by David Mitchell, sees panellists competing against each other, talking on a specific subject and trying to smuggle nuggets of truth past opponents amid a deluge of fictitious creations.
Divorce was one of the topics on May 9. Tony Hawks came up with some gems including “divorced people smell” (“of failure” piped up Charlie Brooker, a little unkindly, as is his acerbic way), “divorced people have their own sector on the X Factor” and “Saudi Arabian women can get a divorce if her husband does not bring them coffee”.
For the record, the third of these statements is true, at least according to the programme. There was some debate on a number of others and I think what this showed was that there remain so many myths around divorce that it is difficult still for people to pick out what is true and what is not.
I believe the stigma surrounding divorce which might have attached itself to people a few years ago has now well and truly disappeared, no matter what comedians might suggest to the contrary, perhaps largely down to how commonplace it now is. However, despite it being such a common thing, with 50% of all 16-year-olds in the UK having separated parents, people still seem puzzled as to how it works.
Divorce is simply the ending of the legal obligations that marriage brings. There is no such thing as common law wife and the wife doesn’t always get half of everything – and the kids. You can commit adultery even if you are separated from your spouse, and divorce need not cost a fortune if some simple rules are followed.
These are perhaps some of the most commonly-repeated myths that we deal with. We have tried to set these right at every turn, along with many others. We have produced a free book on divorce myths (soon to be available on Kindle by the way) and created our own divorce myths website on the topic, and still we all need to do more to educate people that divorce need not be an expensive and unfathomable nightmare.
There is still a lot that needs to be done to dispel those divorce myths and ensure people have reliable information on the process – all joking aside.
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How do you keep a relationship exciting and fulfilling? If I could answer that question, I would be very comfortably off indeed and probably writing this on my own island, sipping a glass of wine from my own French vineyard.
I don’t know how many times I have spoken to a man or woman going through a divorce who can’t really put their finger on what is wrong, just that they don’t want to be with their other half any more. They struggle to come up with issues to include in the divorce petition. Unreasonable behaviour may be the core ground for divorce, but allegations to back it up can be thin to say the least, anything from “leaving the toilet seat up” to “she never walks the dog”.
However, in my experience, there has not been a clear distinction between men and women around who is more likely to get bored first, so I was interested to read the findings of a study out last week. It showed women are more likely to become bored in a marriage than men – but men are quicker to tire out of wedlock. Just think about that for a minute. Is that telling us then that men are the more committed partners? Or that women are more content to stay out of wedlock? Or both, and many other things besides? I think you could probably spin it any way you want.
The Daily Mail reports that for the study, 88 couples – including one who had been married for 36 years – were asked about their relationship. The answers included nearly 70 varying descriptions of boredom. A second group was then asked to pick from the list of descriptions with “dull” being the most common answer picked to describe their own relationships.
Another unsurprising result from researcher Beverley Fehr, of the University of Winnipeg in Canada, was that in many cases marriage was seen as more boring than dating. The report doesn’t give too much more detail so I cannot drill down into the intricacies of different answers between men and women, and substantiate the claim made at the start that men are more bored outside of marriage, but it is food for thought isn’t it?. Traditional stereotypes might suggest women are more disposed towards marriage than men (sweeping generalisation, I know, but would you disagree?) Men would tend to be happier to go with the flow and co-habit without feeling the need to go further. This study would seem to fly in the face of this, with men bored in open-ended relationships while women feel life becomes more dull in a marriage.
Does this give us any pointers on how we can help couples be happier, whether they are married or cohabiting? I don’t think so. It just highlights again that men are in one place and women in another.
Andrew Woolley
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May 11
9
Monday Morning Bulletin
Ladies and Gentlemen
Please find attached this week’s Bulletin which contains the following points:
- Commodity prices suffer their worst week for two and a half years on fears of stalling global recovery
- Positive US jobs news helps equity markets recover some ground
- Threat of Greek default sparks another round of eurozone uncertainty
- Bank of England holds interest rates as austerity measures and higher prices bite
- Income opportunities remain for savers prepared to take additional risk
If you need any further information or would like to book a one to one appointment please call me on 07971 362558 or email me at joanne.hill@sjpp.co.uk.
My Website www.jlhill.co.uk
It is no secret that fewer people are getting married. In 2009, the latest (provisional) figures available (again statisticians, why the delay?) 231, 490 couples said “I do”, the lowest since 1895. To put it another way, 8.4 people per 1,000 in 2009 compared to 8.7 in 2008.
Neither is it a secret that the divorce rate is high in the UK – but falling. There were 113,949 divorces in 2009 (again, the latest stats they have) with 10.5 people per 1,000 of the married population filing for divorce compared to 11.2 in 2008. Estimates suggest divorce for around 33% of marriages.
I regularly quote statistics so I spent a bit more time poking around the ONS site to see what I could find and I unearthed some interesting figures. It really is incredible what is there when you look for it, though not always obvious where to look. I wonder what the latest (2009) stats are for how long it takes people to find what they want on a statistics website?
Civil ceremonies accounted for 67 per cent of marriages in 2009 – so fewer people are worried about the religious side of marriage when tying the knot. In addition, 16% of young people (aged 16 to 24) with no religion co-habit. They represent the largest group of co-habitees so it seems there is no end in sight to the trends above, with fewer church weddings and fewer people getting married. And with fewer people getting married, there will inevitably continue to be fewer divorces.
More people get divorced aged between 40 and 44 than any other age (page 2). And as I was typing this, what then happened by complete coincidence, I swear, is I saw a Tweet which stated: “In that last year, 2.3 million people aged 45-64 lived alone”, according to the Office of National Statistics. The really staggering figure behind that is that is has risen dramatically in nine years: the figure was 1.7 million in 2001. It then asks the question: “Divorce or choosing to be alone?” Have to admit I have not been able to find the exact data on this but I have no reason to doubt a Daily Telegraph journalist.
So are these trends linked? I guess when I have talked about marriages going down, and divorces going down, I have simply assumed that it is “balanced” by more couples co-habiting, either before/instead of a wedding or after finding a new partner when a marriage has failed. What I have perhaps given less thought to is those in their 40s or 50s who are divorcing and then spending their time living alone. Should then we be offering additional support to those going through a divorce for what comes after? It might not be that they quickly get into another relationship or are kept busy with young children to look after. They may be left psychologically scarred by the breakdown of their marriage or relationship. They may find a few years down the line, when the children leave home, they are left on their own and without the confidence to go out and meet people. Or, of course, it could simply be that many more people are happy to just be on their own and wait to see if someone new comes into their life.
Whatever the reason, I think family lawyers should give thought to the level of support they give to a person going through a divorce, not just on the legal front for the here and now, but their broader well-being in the longer term to avoid “divorce casualties” becoming a new statistic to be tracked.
Andrew Woolley
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RSPCA launched a campaign last week called PetRetreat. It’s a fostering service for pets effectively. A network of fosterers can look after a person’s cats, dogs or whatever, so that they can escape domestic violence. Once they are settled in a new life, they can claim back their pet.
The move came because some victims of domestic violence feel trapped in their situation because they don’t want to leave – leaving the animals behind. Because they have nowhere to take them and no one else to look after them, they go on living a wretched life as a victim of domestic violence.
A nationwide appeal for pet fosterers has gone out. If you are interested in helping, you can find out more here.
It’s not something I had thought about before. Are there lots of people who can’t leave because they are worried about what will happen to the dog? Highly likely bearing in mind we are a nation of animal lovers. I guess it is not just the wrench of leaving them behind but also the fear that, in extreme circumstances, an abusive partner might harm the pet. It is difficult enough for someone in a violent relationship to leave in many cases so anything to help them should be welcomed.
Pets do play a prominent role in any home and, therefore, in any split. They can be involved in “tugs of love” just as children can. Or they can be used as pawns in bitter disputes over settlements – just as children can. Courts may even be asked to rule on who “gets custody” of Tiddles or Monty.
We have a long way to go before our system evolves to that in force in the USA where some of the federal courts are starting to apply the concept of the best interest of the animal, a standard usually reserved for questions involving children. For example, a Virginian court has applied the rationale that a cat’s happiness took priority over the property rights between the parties.
It is a sore point for many UK pet owners to learn that our own system takes a somewhat more literal approach. Applying the rule at its most basic level, an animal is considered an asset the same as any matrimonial possessions. However, unlike the family car or computer, things often become much more complicated because with animals it can get more emotional.
Whilst there are many cases involving animals that end up in the court arena, thankfully most cases settle long before it reaches a stage where the court has to make an ultimate decision.
The best approach remains to try and negotiate an agreement as, unless the law changes, the best interest of the pet will not be considered and the pet will continue to be treated as the parties’ personal property. Read more on the topic in this article on the Woolley & Co website.
Andrew Woolley
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ADR seems to be a new buzz word in family law at the moment. Alternative Dispute Resolution has been mentioned much in context of family mediation, as mediation is an example of ADR. However, an alternative route to mediation is collaborative divorce.
I’ve talked about collaborative family law a number of times before but I think in the current climate there has been some confusion around collaboration, mediation and ADR, so it is worth mentioning again.
A big difference between collaborative divorce and mediation is that mediation involves a (hopefully) trained mediator sitting down with the two individuals to look at where there is common ground. They can help lead the estranged couple through sticky areas of negotiation with the aim of reaching a settlement acceptable to both parties without the need to go to court. If this does not work, other routes may still need to be explored and court time may ultimately be needed. In most cases the individuals will go to mediation having consulted a family lawyer about their case and / or they will need the help of their lawyer to draft a legally binding agreement after the mediation.
Collaborative divorce involves both parties and their respective solicitors signing up at the start to work on a collaborative process. This means they agree to work to a solution without going to court. Four-way meetings can then take place with both parties having their lawyer present. The key difference is this offers legal representation in discussions.
One of the main reasons perhaps that collaborative divorce still hasn’t kicked off in the UK as it has elsewhere is that both sides must have a lawyer trained in the collaborative process – and they are not always easy to find. One party may have a solicitor they have used in the past now and want to stick with them. If they do not have collaborative law training, the route of a collaborative divorce is not open to the couple.
The process can be more successful in the long term than using the traditional court based approach as the parties are more likely to adhere to resolutions that they have reached themselves through negotiations rather than having ones imposed on them by the court. Once agreement is reached, the lawyers can draw up a document that can then be submitted to the court for approval, giving it a legal seal of approval.
It can also be less costly as court time is not needed. However, legal representation is essential.
Collaborative law has proven to be particularly useful in cases where there is a family business as a going concern, with farming being a good example. There is a clear advantage to all in a business enterprise continuing while details are worked out on how assets will be split and how things will function in the future.
An experienced family law practice should be able to advise on whether or not the collaborative approach is right for you. For more details, please see our article on the issue.
Andrew Woolley
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Mar 11
30
Will families bear Budget brunt?
I always watch the Budget with interest. The pantomime that goes with it is often as entertaining as any comedy programme you’ll see on television. There are villains, cheers, boos and backstabbing. It is particularly entertaining coming soon after a general election where there has been a change of the guard. The former Government is always quick to stick the knife in about the state of the economy – an economy which we all know cannot be changed quickly and of which they were, inevitably, the architects.
After the lengthy speech and fiery (if a little pre-rehearsed) response from the Opposition, I look at the details of the changes and try to figure out whether I will be better or worse off. And years of doing this has taught me one inevitable truth: it’s all swings and roundabouts. You win some, you lose some. You gain a bit here but lose a bit there. Generally speaking.
I also, inevitably, look at the analysis to see how families will be hit to try and gauge the affect on your average family and any knock-on effects. I don’t mean in the context of whether a family law firm will see spikes in business in the near future as families in crisis are pushed over the brink by the Chancellor. No, more a case of being up on what is happening so that I can give an informed opinion if asked. Working in family law is not just about us giving sound, plain English legal advice.
So I read with interest a piece in the Observer this Sunday from think tank Resolution Foundation which suggests families with children will ultimately be the ones hit hardest by George Osborne’s measures announced last week (As an aside, I have always wanted to be a member of a think tank? How do you get to be in one?!)
The analysis looks at the effects on low and middle earners of measures in Mr Osborne’s budget, as well as the latest official predictions from the Office for Budget Responsibility on how wage rises will lag behind increases in the cost of living. And it suggests typical families with children will see their incomes fall by between 4% and 7% in real terms over the next year.
There are several factors contributing to this situation, they assure us. Inflation will outstrip earnings growth, changes to tax credit and, in particular child benefit, will hit many families hard, particular those with a single wage earner, for instance. So the “squeezed middle” will be squeezed more. I have no reason to doubt the analysis, despite the fact the chief executive is a former adviser to Gordon Brown.
Both Nick Clegg and David Cameron said positive things about helping married couples, and families more generally, before the general election. I would not say that either has specifically reneged on promises yet – but neither have either done anything significantly tangible to help strengthen family units either. It is no surprise that finances are among the biggest causes of tension in households. That’s why predictions like this one fill me with dread. More, and prolonged, financial hardship could be the nail in the coffin for some relationships. We need to be doing more to help those families in crisis while urging politicians to finally bring some good news to those caught in the middle of the economic crisis. All suggestions please to 10, Downing Street, London
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