Introduction
Families are the backbone of our society
In 2018, more than 19 million families were living in the UK as part of more than 27 million households. Married couples and single-parent families are declining, with cohabiting couples taking the majority share of families, increasing by more than 25% since 2008. Same-sex couple families have grown by more than 50% since 2015.
Therefore, it is apparent that modern UK families consist of different types of relationships and family groups. The traditional family unit of thirty and forty years ago doesn’t exist anymore.
Legal rights are different in modern families, and changes in family life bring subsequent benefits and risks to various members of families. As a result, the legal landscape of family law has irrevocably changed.
This blog aims to highlight a few new trends in UK family law without going into too much detail. The scope is too broad for that!
The evolving face of marriage
In the past few decades, marriage was a ‘stabiliser.’ Despite income, age, or education, married couples tended to stay together. This has changed drastically. Nuclear families do not necessarily stay together anymore.
People are now marrying much later in life, if at all. Some marry more than once, often forming a blended family with children from their previous lives. It can have repercussions at divorce.
For instance, if couples marry later, one partner previously may have intermingled an inheritance into marital assets, such as upgrading the family home. Should the couple divorce, these monies from your family can go to the other spouse (which might also be in line for future inheritance.) In blended families, responsibilities for stepchildren can remain even after separation.
Alternative families
Surrogacy, co-parenting, and sperm donation form new family units in the modern age. All of this brings different matters to light in respect of family law.
Cohabiting families are the fastest growing family type in the UK, and people live together without ever getting married (or before getting married eventually.)
As the UK did not have ‘common law marriage,’ these couples did not have the same legal rights as married couples. However, this changed with the civil partnership regulations of 2019 for opposite-sex couples. Couples can now register a civil partnership in England and Wales. Should the relationship break down, the legal status for these couples is now the same as those for married couples in terms of tax, inheritance, and financial provision.
Since March 2014, same-sex couples can also legally marry in the UK and are treated the same as their heterosexual counterparts.
Re E (Adoption by One Person) [2021] EWFC 45
Doing the right thing.
Ms A and Ms B were in an exclusive relationship for more than nine years and committed to each other.
Ms A had a baby, and Ms B adopted him. Then, Ms B also had a baby, but the couple separated before Ms A could get to adopt the girl.
Ms A still wanted to adopt the second baby. The ‘Adoption and Children Act of 2002’ says that adoption can happen if the parents are a couple and if they are in an ‘enduring family relationship.’
The court concluded that the issue of whether people are partners in an ‘enduring family relationship’ is a matter for the court to decide. The court will consider the facts and the degree of the family relationship. The partners need not share a home to have a family relationship. Everyone has a right to have a family life, especially children.
In this case, there was a family life that could be seen between Ms A and her daughter and a care arrangement for the firstborn son in which Ms B was involved. The family life remained integrated for all four family members, even though Ms A and Ms B were not living together anymore.
Therefore, the judge concluded that they are still living partners in an enduring family relationship, and Ms A was allowed to adopt the girl. Thus, the girl could live in the same family unit as her brother with the same legal status.
Trends in Divorce
No protective fence around marriage anymore
A hundred years ago, people did not get divorced easily due to the social stigma. The status of ‘marriage’ provided all that couples needed. People with assets did not even need contractual protection as capital could not be transferred upon divorce.
None of this is true anymore. There have been revolutionary changes in the nature of marriage, gender, and lifestyle expectations.
A decrease in the divorce rate
In 2019, there were more than 105,000 opposite-sex divorces and 822 same-sex divorces in England and Wales. It is a more than 30% decrease from 1993. (Are people, therefore, getting better at staying together? The answer is no – they just don’t get married anymore. Marriages in the UK have decreased from 1972 to 2017 by well over 40%).
The most common reason for divorce in the UK is ‘unreasonable behaviour.’ Interestingly, second marriages in the UK are less likely to end in divorce – especially if the spouses are older.
Birdnesting in the UK
A new trend for divorced couples
‘Nesting’ is a way of living where children stay permanently in the marital home after a divorce, and the legal guardians rotate during their agreed time with the children. Like birds who keep their chicks safe in the nest and fly in and out, parents spend time with children and stay elsewhere when they are ‘off duty.’
A recent UK study found that more than 10% of divorced or separated couples tried nesting at some time or another. So the children’s lives are not disrupted, and they don’t have the stress of shuttling between two places.
Nesters may choose to buy individual apartments, rent a room in a shared house, or stay with family or friends during their time ‘off.’ Usually, it is a temporary agreement, but some people ‘nest’ for years.
The use of social media and IT in modern families
We can’t do without it. We communicate, organise our time, childcare arrangements and finances through social media and digital devices.
However, with digital devices and social media comes security concerns and a host of other factors. How do you trust others online, and who do you share your data with?
‘Bad behaviour’
Since the beginning of divorce cases, the ‘he did this’ and ‘she did that’ arguments in family law litigation were universal. In the past, evidence in court to support ‘bad behaviour’ were direct testimony, photographs, bills, and letters.
Modern social media changed all that. The variety of evidence exploded to include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, emails, and text messages. Postings by friends and family can also be used as evidence to incriminate the opposing party.
Were you tagged as being in a bar with friends? Your ex could use the posting against you if you had a placement with the children that evening. Also, checking in at different locations such as concerts, restaurants or vacation places can show your spouse that you do have money after all and that you can pay child support.
Social media evidence is a definite factor in modern family law that is here to stay.
Snapshots of more trends:
- Remote court hearings: Covid-19 forced family courts to think out of the box, and remote court hearings were introduced successfully in England and Wales over the last two years. Legal professionals see this trend to last long after the pandemic ends due to its efficiency in more administrative types of hearings. Hybrid hearings are also on the rise, where some people are physically present in the courtroom, and others log in remotely. See our blog on remote hearings.
- An online portal: My HMCTS is an online portal where solicitors can process uncontested divorces. It has also reduced wait times for the approval of financial consent orders from over three months to days.
- International families post-Brexit: Cross-border divorce cases can now be decided in the most appropriate court and no longer need to be dealt with in the first country where the proceedings were filed. More remedies will be available for financial and childcare cases, and the court will recognise orders in EU countries other than England and Wales (and vice versa.)
- No-Fault Divorce: Parties in the UK can now divorce more simply in just 26 weeks. With the ‘no-fault divorce’ ruling that came to pass in the UK in 2022, couples won’t have to prove unreasonable behaviour, adultery or go through a period of separation anymore.
- Changes to the terms of orders relating to spousal or children support: There was a significant rise in variation applications over the last two years, and it remains high. A downturn in the economy means that a party is often unable to meet maintenance obligations and is often forced by the opposing party to do so.
Conclusion
The law eventually catches up with all social changes
The days of assuming are long over, and you need to be conscious of trends in modern family law and its potential consequences over the long term.
At Robertsons Family Law we pride ourselves on having all of the answers to your family law questions with our vast range of connections. So contact us today, we are here to help!
