2022 in assessment – reflections on the previous 12 months in household legislation

Managing Accomplice Julian Hawkhead finishes the 12 months with a glance again on the important developments for UK household legislation over the previous twelve months, and displays on one other profitable 12 months for Stowe. 

As one other 12 months attracts to an in depth, I’ve paused within the frantic closing off of the calendar 12 months to mirror on occasions within the lifetime of Stowe and the broader household legislation world over the previous twelve months.

While 2022 introduced a renewed sense of hope, nobody might have predicted the brand new challenges that we might face. It’s arduous to imagine that we began the 12 months working remotely nonetheless and speaking in regards to the Omicron variant and booster vaccinations.

In the course of the course of the 12 months we’ve tentatively returned to some “previous” methods of life, returning to workplaces in better numbers and better frequency. Collectively it has felt just like the ingredient we missed a lot in lockdown; the flexibility to share and propagate concepts in individual with colleagues. It has been nice to return into the workplace and take heed to legal professionals bouncing concepts off one another, important not just for drawback fixing but in addition sharing experiences and data.

A 12 months of change at Stowe

2022 has been a seismic 12 months for Stowe Household Regulation. We opened 17 new workplace places, recruited 68 new colleagues, and accomplished our first acquisition of one other household legislation agency. In consequence, the agency is one third greater in scale than at this level final 12 months. With this development our legal professionals have been capable of assist much more households deal with the emotional and authorized penalties of household breakdown as they’re confronted with the mixed fallout of the pandemic and the cost-of-living disaster.

The introduction of no-fault divorce

The previous 12 months has additionally been a landmark one for household legislation with the introduction of no-fault divorce again in April. This was the fruits of a few years of campaigning, and rightly seen as a triumph for many who have advocated for a blame free divorce course of and the modernisation of antiquated divorce legal guidelines.

Right here at Stowe, we noticed our first no-fault divorce consumer attain the tip of their divorce course of with a ultimate divorce order granted in November. There’s little doubt we are going to see many extra purchasers attain the tip of the brand new course of within the coming weeks.

As a lawyer it has been a aid to not must have to debate with purchasers the causes of their marriage breakdown at nice size figuring out that one of many main functions was to work out tips on how to draft a divorce petition with enough factors of blame. The flexibility to concentrate on consumer points that wanted to be resolved, whether or not they relate to their kids or their funds, with out the extra “noise” of divorce blaming is a profit for each consumer and lawyer.

The decision for cohabitation reform

Sadly, comparable success has not been achieved by campaigners for the introduction of legal guidelines to guard cohabiting {couples}. Cohabitation is the quickest rising household sort in England and Wales. In 2021 there have been round 3.6 million cohabiting {couples} within the UK in contrast with 1.5 million in 1996. But the parable of frequent legislation marriage persists and single {couples} who break up up face navigating a minefield of advanced laws to resolve monetary points.

Household legal professionals have been on the forefront of calling for change on this space for a while. In August the Home of Commons’ Girls and Equalities Fee produced a report into the rights of cohabiting partners. This referred to as for the Authorities to reform household legislation to higher defend cohabiting {couples} and their kids from monetary hardship within the occasion of separation and to offer better monetary safety for cohabiting {couples} upon the dying of 1 companion.

The Authorities’s response was to reject the Fee’s advice, indicating that it considers present work underway on the legislation of marriage and divorce should conclude earlier than contemplating any change to the legislation of cohabitants on relationship breakdown. Specifically, the Authorities has mentioned it should concentrate on its dedication to conduct a assessment of the legislation of monetary provision on divorce: It can’t absolutely rethink the legislation referring to relationship breakdown of cohabitants earlier than the assessment on monetary provision for divorce has reached its conclusions and made its suggestions.

As well as, the Authorities is contemplating the case for complete reform to marriage legislation and considers that the legislation referring to the connection breakdown of cohabiting {couples} might additionally not be thought of outdoors the context of any wider reform to the legislation of marriage.

So, it seems that there isn’t any probability of reform to the legislation of cohabitation anytime quickly, and we are going to proceed to advise single {couples} within the context of an unsatisfactory patchwork of laws which fairly often results in inequitable outcomes and monetary hardship.

For me this failure to determine any measures to guard financially susceptible individuals popping out of cohabiting relationships is unfortunately a short-sighted resolution of the federal government. To prioritise reform to monetary treatments circumstances for divorcing {couples} in circumstances the place there may be already a framework, albeit some may contemplate an imperfect framework, above a necessity to offer monetary safety to cohabiting {couples} the place in a lot of circumstances there may be presently none suggests to me that the federal government is making ethical judgements on {couples} relying on whether or not they select to “formalise” their relationship or not.

In any occasion it leaves a lot of susceptible individuals much more reliant on state funded monetary help. We are able to solely hope that parliament is ready to resolve this drawback sooner than it was capable of result in reform to no fault divorce.

Delayed surrogacy invoice

Surrogacy is one other space through which we had hoped to see important progress in direction of reform this 12 months. The legislation on this space has remained largely the identical for 30 years and has not saved tempo with scientific and societal developments. The Law Commission are within the technique of getting ready a draft invoice which was because of be printed within the autumn, however the Invoice will now be delayed till spring 2023. Proposals for reform that are more likely to be contained throughout the draft Invoice embrace:

• The creation of a brand new pathway to parenthood which can imply that the supposed dad and mom would be the authorized dad and mom from start of a kid born of the surrogacy association, topic to the surrogate’s proper to object for an outlined interval from start. There could be no want for the supposed dad and mom to use for a parental order.
• There would safeguards or eligibility necessities alongside the pathway which might solely apply to home surrogacy preparations.
• The elimination of the present requirement that a minimum of one of many supposed dad and mom should have a genetic hyperlink with the kid.
• The creation of a register to permit for these born of surrogacy preparations to entry details about their origins.

The proposals are welcomed by practitioners however there may be concern on the delay within the publication of the draft invoice. However, the Regulation Fee has proven dedication to making sure that our surrogacy legal guidelines are efficient and up-to-date, and optimism stays that we’ll see the introduction of wholesale reform of the surrogacy course of sooner or later.

Home Abuse Act

While the Home Abuse Act acquired Royal Assent in April 2021, lots of its key provisions solely got here into impact throughout the final 12 months, and a few are nonetheless awaited. The Act was hailed by the federal government as a landmark invoice which might rework the response to home abuse, serving to to stop offending, defend victims and be sure that they’ve the help they want. Nonetheless, lots of the organisations who campaigned for the brand new legislation have recognized important gaps and omissions throughout the Act, and it’s seen by some as a missed alternative. For instance, the legislation fails to ship equal safety and help for migrant ladies and campaigners proceed to hunt amendments to abolish the no recourse to public funds omission and be sure that migrant ladies can apply for indefinite depart to stay independently from their perpetrator.

There may be additionally concern that the Act fails to handle facet of the Common Credit score system that facilitates and exacerbates abuse and that while there may be now a statutory responsibility on native authorities to offer home abuse refuges, there isn’t any comparable provision for community-based companies which has result in concern that secure lodging will probably be funded on the expense of companies throughout the group, that are vitally necessary for a lot of victims.

As well as, maybe inevitably, it’s clear that with out enough assets from authorities to fund the measures applied, the effectiveness of the Act will probably be restricted.  Thus, whereas the Act has potential to enhance the help offered to some victims of home abuse and have significant affect upon prevention, it isn’t a panacea.

As we attain the tip of 2022, the burden of value of residing will increase, rising rates of interest and a common financial maelstrom will, I’m positive, be heavy on many readers minds and I hope you’ll be able to keep secure and wholesome as we hope for higher occasions to return in 2023.