The spouse who initiates the separation does not automatically have to leave the marital home. As a general rule of thumb, the partner who retains primary responsibility for caring for any children will be the one who stays.
The one major caveat to this, pointed out by both Inness and Katzenberg, is that if there is an imminent personal risk to spouse or children, it is best to leave the martial home.
An application cannot be made to the courts for an interdict barring the other spouse from the family home or for the right to change the locks, since it is illegal to change locks on a property held in joint names without the court's consent.
It is also not possible for one spouse to sell the marital home from underneath the other. According to Inness, the Law Society of Scotland's guidelines forbid its members from acting in the sale of property where a couple are in dispute.
Where the property is owned jointly, the partner leaving the marital home does not forfeit rights to the property.
Inness says: "The situation is more complicated if the house is in the other party's sole name, as you have no rights other than occupancy rights which you would have to go to court to enforce."
Interestingly, Inness says she has a significant number of clients who are separated but continue to live together because neither can afford to move out.