SAHMs and divorce settlements - controversial new rulings

[Greensleeves]

\link{http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5010888.stm\interesting}

Some of the choicer readers' comments :

"Women are always claiming they want love and marriage. At the end of the day all they seem to want is money. My advice to men is steer clear!"

"The judiciary are so out of touch with real life but they, and not parliament, are making the laws.
Marriage is dying out in the UK and with it a caring and law abiding society. The fault can be laid at the feet of the legal system, the child support agency and idle, greedy women."

Any thoughts anyone?

Regarding the younger woman, didn't he make the money after they were married? I think anything gained by either of you during your marriage whould belong equally to both of you.

IWth FIL, the Soplicitor held that as she couldn't demonstrate any contribution then she didn't get anything, bar half the house. In actuality however, the house had been intended for her anyway by th ewill that left it to them. BIL bought out half the house, that part that was FILs, and MIL has to maintain the other half (basically, they were left a rather special house, they ahd to sell their existing terrace and then buy the house with exactly that amount, thereby getting them a significant discount. The money then went to charity. However, FIL demanded the going rate for his half from BIL, effectively condemning BIL to living with MIL for ever. At thirty he ahs a mortgage with his Mum -that is six times his salary. She is controlling anyway so she doesn't allow him to have females in The house.... thereby FIl robbed both of them of a future, and can't see the issue as he maintains that MIL deserves nothing. Now, I don't like the women one bit, but she slaved for him every second of her life.

personally, I have no idea how he got away ith it, but he did.

This whole thing of "we're supposed to be equal".

Yeah supposed to be. But we're not.

This ruling is brilliant. It recognises the importance of non-cash contributions to a household economy, and it works in the real world rather than the pretend world of children not needing to be looked after and women being able to go out and carry on their career two months after the divorce. And it re-states the position of marriage. If people don't want large maintenance bills, then they don't need to get married.

I am so pleased about this ruling. I think it will have a direct effect on my own situation. I will be going back to court next Feb as my tight, mean, selfish cheating ex-husband wanted to reduce his maintenance payments & now I will be doing it with the benefit of guidance from the Law Lords. Piece of good news for a change.

I think it's a great ruling when children and family-life is involved, but I don't really see why the woman who didn't have any kids should get rewarded this settlement? What contribution exactly did she make? I don't really see how anyone would want to be dependant on an ex-husband for the rest of their lives either. Seems quite old-fashioned to me, but I understant sometimes it's unavoidable.

It is worth remembering that the Law Lords are only recommending that a wife shoudl be entitled to share in surplus income of her ex-husband into the future - where there is enough income to do more than merely cater for basic maintenance needs. In the majority of divorces, there is usually only enough to cover basic needs.

I haven't followed it properly. The woman without the kids -did she make some kind of contribution to his business?

Because I guess what you could argue, is that if you ran a business together as a couple, and then get divorced and the business becomes very successful, it would not have had that success without the original input of the other partner. So even if it's ten years later and has floated onto the stock market, without that original contribution, this would never have happened and therefore the orginal contributors to the business (partners as well as spouses), would still be entitled to a percentage.

I don't see that as dependence, I see it as getting your fair cut. Imagine if Anita Roddick and her DH had divorced before the Body Shop flotation - would anyone really argue that he didn't have any entitlement at all to share in the profits, even though the business had been built between them and without his input could never have happened? I've probably got all the details wrong, but in principle, I think it's probably fair. I guess the only issue for me, is how long is it fair to continue to give a parnter who no longer has any input at all, a share in it because of the part they played at one stage? And I don't think there can possibly be a rule on that, because it would all depend on the nature of the business.

From what I can gather Caligula, there are still some discrepancies in the approach taken by the two law lords who wrote the main opinions over the way in which business assets built up during the marriage should be treated. However, Lady Hale suggested that arugements that business assets generated mainly by the efforts of one party were different from family assets and could not be ignored.
With regard to the Miller judgement (wife with no children & short marriage). She had in fact had a miscarriage in 2002 & then in 03 he left her for another woman. The Judges said that they had to "regard the high standard of living enjoyed by the parties during the marriage as a key feature in this case". I presume meaning that just because the wife was dumped for a younger model, she shouldn't lose all entitlement to the standard of living she was hoping to expect for the rest of her life.

I think I really need to read the details of the judgments properly, but the two cases seem quite different, don't they?

I'm work and DH is a SAHD. If we were to split up, I think my views on what each of us should be entitled to would depend very much on where the children mainly lived. I'd be much happier to support him if the children mainly lived with him and he continued to be the primary carer. If they lived with me, and I had to pay a nanny/childminder to look after them out of my taxed income, I would expect him to go and get a job (even if not at the level he worked at before) in order to support himself.

I thought that was reported very badly on R4, I couldn't quite grasp it yesterday. They said his adultery should have no bearing on the settlement, but then that she was entitled to expect the same standard of living, which is a separate issue. I think where there are no children, behaviour should have a bearing, actually and it seems that in this case it has de facto, if not officially.

I also would question that thing about business assets being built up by one party, because again, you have to look at the fact that that party was enabled to make the efforts s/he did to build up the assets, by the domestic support of the other party. There's an argument that goes, if the domestic support hadn't been there, the other party wouldn't have had the time/ energy / freedom to put into the business.

Caligula, all the broadsheets have got some good analysis. FT is particularly good, if you are really interested.
The business issue is still up for debate, as the law lords did not speak "with one voice" on this particularly issue. Lord Nicholls said that the "courts should be exceedingly slow to draw any distinction between family & business assets".
The comments in the FT seemed to think that further test cases would be required to clarify in more detail some of the computing of the actual contributions which should be made. As always with our legal system, there is room for "interpretation"!!

Or more hoepfully you will remain harmoniously married, fio?

Bugsy I am sorry to hear that your ex is playing up again and glad that this ruling has come out in time to be of potential help for you.