Partner Hannah Minty has been quoted in an article in the Law Gazette commenting on the ONS divorce statistics for England and Wales 2022. Hannah highlights that despite divorces reaching the lowest level in five decades, the introduction of 'no-fault' divorce reforms and a minimum 20-week 'cooling off' period means that the statistics may not fully capture the divorces applied for under the new system.
If a divorce was applied for under the new system when it was introduced on 6 April 2022, it would not have been possible to apply for the first stage of divorce - the conditional order (previously the decree nisi) - until 24 August 2022. The earliest that any application for the final order (previously decree absolute) could have been submitted would have been 5 October 2022, although many couples delay making this application until they have reached a financial settlement. Consequently, very few divorces applied for under the new system would appear in the 2022 statistics and the headline figures showing a decrease in divorce rates may not properly reflect the number of divorces which may have been applied for during this period.
The full article is available to read online at the Law Gazette.
Hannah Minty in the family team. She advises clients from all backgrounds on divorce and financial matters, jurisdictional disputes, prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, property disputes between cohabitees, and financial claims on behalf of children following the breakdown of relationships between unmarried couples.
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