A new report by two law professors in England is showing a great deal about the public’s ignorance of divorce laws. Overall, the public’s understanding about finance and property on divorce was considered poor. However, those fortunate enough to have consulted lawyers previously were considered knowledgeable.
Keeping calm and carrying on
The legal experts say that thousands of people going through their divorces could be losing out due to “do it yourself” divorces. The professors from the University of Bristol authored a new report where 20,000 members of the public in England and Wales answered questions on divorce-related laws about dividing finances and property.
For example, given 10 statements about the law and asked to say whether each was true or false, the public correctly identified an average of 4.5 statements. In fact, just over half (55 per cent) of the public correctly identified at least half of the statements.
Statements Which Are Not True (in England):
- The law says that all assets and debts should be split 50:50, regardless of whose name they were in during the marriage
- Legally, an individual is not entitled to a share of their ex-spouse’s pension
The law says that if an individual contributed more money during the marriage, then they are usually entitled to more than 50 per cent of the assets
Interestingly, people with higher qualifications or incomes were somewhat more likely than those with lower level qualifications or incomes to know what the law was in relation to financial remedies on divorce.
Florida Divorce
The official term for divorce in Florida is “dissolution of marriage”, and you don’t need fault as a ground for divorce. Florida abolished fault as a ground for divorce. I’ve written about divorce issues before. The no-fault concept in Florida means you no longer have to prove a reason for the divorce, like your spouse’s political views. Instead, you just need to state under oath that your marriage is “irretrievably broken”.
Before the no-fault divorce era, people who wanted to get divorce either had to reach agreement in advance with the other spouse that the marriage was over, or throw mud at each other and prove wrongdoing like adultery or abuse.
No-fault laws were the result of trying to change the way divorces played out in court. No fault laws have reduced the number of feuding couples who felt the need to resort to distorted facts, lies, and the need to focus the trial on who did what to whom.
Florida abolished fault as grounds for filing a divorce. The only ground you need to file for divorce in Florida is to prove your marriage is “irretrievably broken.” Additionally, the mental incapacity of one of the parties, where the party was adjudged incapacitated for the prior three year, is another avenue.
Dodgy Results?
The report also showed that women were more likely to know about aspects of the law relevant to having children, and men to know somewhat more about the law around the division of assets.
Additionally, and not surprisingly, divorcees were somewhat more knowledgeable about the law than others. But still, their percentages appear to be mere guesswork: they identified an average of 5.2 statements correctly compared to 4.4 statements among those who had not been through a divorce. However, the differences between divorcees and others were not large, with levels of misconception still high among divorcees.
Having a lawyer was important to knowing your rights. Among divorcees who had divorced in the previous five years: those who had used more formal routes to reaching an arrangement, or consulted or used a lawyer, tended to know more about the laws around finances on divorce than those who had not.
Those with higher levels of assets to divide on divorce tended to have a greater understanding than those with lower levels or no assets. Divorcees with dependent children were more knowledgeable than other divorcees in relation to the law around the legal position of parents with main care of their children and around the child maintenance formula, although there were still high levels of misunderstanding among parents on these issues.
With do it yourself divorces, when couples settle how to split finances without courts, the law allows them to agree any split they want. More people are now coming up with their “own solutions” surrounding divorce settlements as there is no longer legal aid in England and Wales. The findings highlighted that women had a greater understanding around law relating to children, whilst men were more likely to know the law on assets.
The professor said the lack of legal aid leads to less awareness and knowledge which is “potentially problematic” because it means that people are relying on “their own misunderstanding of the law which tends to lead to poor settlements”.
The majority of the divorcing population in England and Wales reach arrangements relating to their finances and property outside of the formal family justice system, and also that one in five divorcees seek advice and support from family and friends during the divorce process.
For these reasons, it is important to know what level of knowledge people have, and whether there are misconceptions which might be influencing the decisions made by divorcees and the advice family and friends provide.
The BBC article is here.