Birch v Birch: an overview

Jenna Lucas
Irwin Mitchell LLP

In Birch v Birch [2017] UKSC 53, the appellant (‘W’) has successfully appealed to the Supreme Court and her case is to be remitted for hearing in relation to an undertaking which she gave pursuant to a consent order dated 26 July 2010.

The issue the Supreme Court was asked to consider was whether the court should apply s 31 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 to the application to vary the undertaking, or whether the court was constrained by the Court of Appeal authority to apply a narrower approach (Omielan v Omielan [1996] 2 FLR 306), even if this was considered to be inconsistent with the children’s best interests.