No-fault divorce fuelling ‘animosity’, says family lawyer

No-fault divorce has intensified conflict between spouses, rather than reducing it, a family lawyer has reported.

James Grigg, Partner and Head of Family Law at HCR Law, told The Law Society Gazette that allowing couples to divorce without a reason has led to an increase of irrelevant financial claims, which often fuel, rather than quash, animosity.

The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act came into effect in 2022. Under the law, couples can divorce in six months and a spouse cannot contest the decision. According to the Ministry of Justice, only a quarter of divorce applications are submitted by both spouses.

‘Healing process’

Grigg explained: “Previously, being able to apportion blame at the start of the process by citing a spouse’s adultery or unreasonable behaviour was important to many people on a psychological level, serving as a therapeutic step in the healing process.

“The removal of fault in the divorce regime, as a legal concept, is straightforward. However, removing it from the human psyche is far more complicated.”

He emphasised that changing the law has “led to more spouses littering financial statements with allegations of bad behaviour which, invariably, have no impact or relevance on the financial settlement.

“This is happening more than we saw under the old system and it often fuels animosity, resulting, ironically, in increased costs and delays.”

Family breakdown

Campaign group Coalition for Marriage (C4M) said the comments expose promises that introducing no-fault divorce would end the “blame game”.

The pro-marriage group noted that adult children of divorced parents “often describe the lasting tug-of-war of living between two homes and the emotional fall-out that follows them into their own relationships”, while studies have reported that such children suffer worse physical health and emotional wellbeing than those of married parents.

C4M emphasised that the Government should “promote efforts to keep marriages together, not make it easier to tear them apart”.

Separation

Before no-fault divorce came into effect in 2022, anyone wanting to divorce their spouse had to prove their marriage had irretrievably broken down through either adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion, or separation for two years with their spouse’s consent, or five years without.

The current law includes a statutory 20-week period that the Ministry of Justice described as an opportunity for couples “to reflect and turn back”.