Monthly archives: March 2024

According to a survey by Canada Life 51% of UK adults have not written a will and are not in the process of writing one, with 13% having no intention to write a will in the future.

If you are cohabiting, divorcing, or contemplating divorce you should make a will or, if you already have a will, you should update it. Otherwise, your estate may end up in unintended hands.

With so many people living together and not getting married, the importance of making and keeping wills up to date has become increasingly more important. For example, if you cohabit and die without making a will then, instead of your estate (and even your share of any house you have bought together), ending up with your partner as you might have intended, it could pass to some relative under the rules of intestacy, leaving a former long-term partner having to find a new home!

And, even if you have a will, when you get married or enter a civil partnership, an existing will automatically becomes revoked. Therefore, if an individual does not subsequently make another will before they die, their estate could be treated as if they don’t have a will and again that the ‘rules of intestacy’ will apply.

As before, these rules may not reflect their wishes and could mean that their loved ones aren’t provided for in the way they would like.

If you marry or have a civil partnership and then divorce or are contemplating divorce, making a new will means that your estate will be dealt with in the way that you want, including that your children and that any new spouse or partner will be provided for. A new will can help prevent potential claims against your estate under the Inheritance Act or by an ex-spouse who might make a financial claim.

We are a team of 5 experienced lawyers but, what makes us different to a firm of solicitors, is that we are acting as divorce consultants. We help people navigate the legal maze and stop them making expensive mistakes. We use our experience of the divorce process to find solutions to lower the temperature and save money.

If the above resonates or you know someone who may benefit from speaking to us, please do contact me. We don’t charge for an initial consultation.

The 2022 figures from the Office of National Statistics reveal there were 80,057 divorces in England and Wales down almost 30% from the 113,505 divorces in 2021. That is the lowest level of divorces since 1971.

We will have to wait for the 2023 figures to see if there is indeed a downward trend, but does this really mean that more marriages are succeeding? We suggest some of the reasons for the low figures: – The state of the economy has forced couples to stay together. More people are cohabiting, so there are less marriages and hence less divorces. The continued cultural shift towards more communication and therapy. Couples are now more likely to seek help and work through issues rather than immediately resorting to divorce. The new ‘no fault divorce’ law introduced in April 2022. We explain below why ‘no fault divorce’ may have skewed the 2022 figures.

The attraction of the new procedure is that it is no longer necessary to blame the other party for causing the divorce.

Accordingly, many of the people who were considering divorce in the back end of 2021, decided to wait until April 2022 when the law changed.

That was all very well but the new divorce procedure required a ‘cooling off’ period of some 20 weeks between the start of the divorce and the grant of the conditional order (previously known as the decree nisi), and then another 6 weeks before the final order (previously the decree absolute).

So, those applying for divorce in April 2022 may well have had to wait until 2023 before they were divorced thereby deflating the 2022 figures.

We are a team of 5 experienced lawyers but, what makes us different to a firm of solicitors, is that we are acting as divorce consultants. We help people navigate the legal maze and stop them making expensive mistakes.

We use our experience of the divorce process to find solutions, lower the temperature and stop people wasting their money.

If you know of someone who may benefit from speaking to us, please tell them to contact me. We do not charge for an initial consultation.