Family and Matrimonial
-
The most important requirements for adoption are that the adopter must be over 21 years of age, the child to be adopted must be under the age of 18 and that joint applications to adopt can only be made by married couples and civil partners. Unmarried couples...
-
Divorce is seldom an easy business, but the problems are compounded when there is a family business involved. The division of the spoils has traditionally been the subject of a great deal of argument, but recent cases have at least clarified the thinking of...
-
A care order is a court order that places a child under the care of a local council. The local council then shares parental responsibility for the child with the parents and will make most of the important decisions about the child's upbringing, such as...
-
Arrangements over the custody of children (called residence arrangements by lawyers) after the breakdown of a relationship are usually best decided without the intervention of the court. Unfortunately, it is not always possible for the two parties to...
-
The first Civil Partnerships were formed on 21 December 2005, after the Civil Partnerships Act 2004 came into effect on 5 December 2005. Same-sex marriages contracted abroad, however, have been recognised as valid civil partnerships from 5 December 2005....
-
One of the most common myths in English law is that there is such a thing as a ‘common law marriage’. It simply doesn’t exist and this misapprehension has led the Law Commission to suggest proposals giving additional rights to cohabiting...
-
Approximately one in six marriages in the European Union is between persons of different nationalities. Not surprisingly, approximately one in six divorces also involves spouses of different nationalities.
This can make for some...
-
When it comes to dealing with money and divorce, it is important to know what has to be taken into account and the powers available to arrive at fair decisions.
For most couples, the basic problem is how to finance two separate households...
-
The most important requirements for adoption are that the adopter must be over 21 years of age, the child to be adopted must be under the age of 18 and that joint applications to adopt can only be made by married couples and civil partners. Unmarried couples...
-
Despite the changes being brought about by the Civil Partnership Act 2004 which introduced the 'civil partnership' for gay couples, the increasingly common situation whereby partners live together without a formal relationship continues to produce arguments...
-
When you begin living together as a couple, without being married, it is best practice to set up a trust deed to make clear your joint wishes and intentions concerning ownership of the house you live in. Preferably, this should be in association with a...
-
The headline-grabbing decisions in the recent ‘rich list’ divorce cases confirm that the House of Lords is emphasising that marriage is a partnership and that the relative contributions of the couple to the marriage will be relevant to the...
-
The 1989 Children Act aimed to clarify the law regarding who could look after children. One of the main new concepts introduced by the Act was that of ‘Parental Responsibility’ (PR). This is the legal term which emphasises that the duty to care...
-
A wife whose divorce settlement included a share of her husband's army pension rights recently faced disappointment in the court when she failed in her bid to be able to receive pension payments before she reached the age of 60.
Her...
-
More than 40 per cent of marriages end in divorce (in England and Wales some 132,562 couples divorced in 2006) and when one in five of all men and women seeking to end their marriage have already been through one divorce, it is perhaps not surprising that...
-
Whilst pre-nuptial agreements have been commonplace in the USA for many years, they have not been used in the UK for the simple reason that the courts have refused to enforce them.
However, a recent case has caused a reawakening of...
-
Incidences of school bullying seem to be on the increase and the view is often taken that there is little or nothing that can be done about it. However, a recent case has given new hope to families whose children suffer at the hands of the playground...
-
We often hear of children being taken into care, but the process by which this occurs is not well known. The Children Act 1989 lays down the circumstances under which it is...
-
In the April 2003 Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the introduction of the Child Trust Fund (CTF).
The CTF is a savings and investment account for children.
Children born on or after 1 September 2002 are...
-
Although divorce is a commonplace occurrence these days, few people going into their first divorce have much idea about how the process operates. Here is a brief guide. The process for dissolution of a civil partnership is essentially the same, as are the...
