Divorce without the blame…

13 Oct

Divorce without the blame

The most common reason for divorce is ‘unreasonable behaviour’. This has been the case for decades and throughout my years of practising as a family solicitor.

An unreasonable behaviour divorce petition involves listing several examples of your spouse’s ‘behaviour’ as the reason for the divorce. This invariably gets the divorce process off to a difficult start. It is never pleasant to hear that you have behaved unreasonably, and however hard some practitioners attempt to use ‘mild’ examples of behaviour, the party on the receiving end is often left feeling hurt after reading the petition, which often leads to an antagonistic start to proceedings which makes things more likely to deteriorate further.

Finally, a new law has been passed which will change this. The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 was passed in law on 25th June 2020. The government has announced that the new law will come into force on 6th April 2022 – not a moment too soon for many couples who are seeking a more dignified way to dissolve their marriages. It is astonishing that it has taken so long to change this aspect of divorce law which has been with us since 1973.

What is different with the new ‘no-fault’ divorce law?

The main changes with the new law are that it will no longer be necessary to apportion blame (the application will simply state that the marriage has broken down irretrievably). It will be possible to make a joint application (but just one party can still apply) and there will be no option to contest or defend the divorce (as there is now). More modern language will be used so ‘decree nisi’ will become ‘conditional order’ and ‘decree absolute’ will become ‘final order’. There will be a notice period of 20 weeks after the application for divorce is made, which may make the divorce process slightly slower than it is now. The divorce will not be finalised until 6 weeks has elapsed from the date of the conditional order (so the minimum time for the divorce will be 26 weeks).

This long-overdue change to the process, has the potential to allow separating couples to go through the difficult process of agreeing child arrangements and/or dividing finances without starting from a position that (however well-intentioned) feels like mud-slinging – this can only be a good thing.

If you want to discuss anything in this article, then please contact us.