Family Law

Grant Howell, Martin Loxley & Andrew Newbury:

Developments as regards financial remedy applications since the Spring 2012 update in April (2012) Fam Law 406. The focus is not only on what a judge in one of the cases calls the "terrible tangle" of financial remedy law but also the practicality of the practitioner's attempts to pick his or her way through that tangle to best assist the client. 

All stages of married relationships are covered from marital agreements right through to challenging final orders and enforcing them. Along the way, questions considered include;

¨       How effective are marital agreements following Radmacher?

¨       Is an income order based just on need, what is the impact of a marriage's length on it and how does capitalisation apply?

¨       What assets are to be included and how they are to be divided?

¨       How are pensions to be treated?

¨       How does third party involvement impact along with the resulting non - family law principles?

¨       What test is to be satisfied in order to be able to appeal?.

Cautionary lessons are stressed as to the need In prepare cases fully but also recognition by  the courts of the realities of acting for clients.