An Omani businessman worth more than £300million has been ordered to give his ex-wife £25million after she argued she needed a £400,000-a-year for holidays and a further £60k for pocket money. The Family Division of the High Court in London heard the case of Talal Al Zawawi, 48 and his ex-wife Leila Hammoud, 36. Ms Hammoud said
According to new figures, Scottish couples who chose a humanist wedding are less likely to divorce than those who had other types of marriage ceremony. The statistics were revealed by BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme, obtained from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS). Humanist weddings have been legal in Scotland since 2005 and are
Delays at the England’s biggest regional divorce centre reached unprecedented levels in 2018. Figures obtained by the Law Gazette found the average waiting times for each stage of the divorce process at Bury St Edmunds increased significantly last year, confirming many lawyers’ concerns about the centre’s ability to cope. Bury St Edmunds is the main centre for
Justice Secretary David Gauke announced that no-fault divorces are to become law in the UK. At present, a couple must be married for a year and a day before they can apply for divorce. If after this time they choose to divorce, either partner can file for it, but only if certain conditions are met. Either the marriage must
No-fault divorces are to be introduced into law. Justice Secretary, David Gauke, confirmed he will bring in legislation enacting the reform in the next session of parliament, removing the need for separating couples to wait for years or allocate blame for the collapse of their relationship. Under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 in England and
The Council of Europe has said Muslim couples getting married in the UK should be legally required to civilly register their union before or during the Islamic ceremony. The organisation raised concerns about the role of sharia councils in family, inheritance and commercial law and called for obstacles stopping Muslim women from accessing justice to be removed. British authorities were asked
Jersey residents have been asked by their government how their 70-year old divorce law should be changed in a public consultation. Views were sought on whether people should be allowed to divorce before their 3rd year of marriage. The public were also asked if the age of marriage should be increased to 18 years of
Recent statistics reveal an increasing number of couples are choosing to marry prior to one of the couple dying. In recent years there has been a distinct increase in cohabiting couples living as common law husband and wife. However, many of these common law spouses do not make their partnership legal. Many are unaware that
A Scottish aristocrat has won the right to take his case to the Supreme Court. Charles Villiers, 55, accused his former spouse, Emma, 60, of “trying it on” in the English courts as a divorce tourist, claiming she only moved to London when they separated in order to apply for maintenance via the more generous
Official figures show divorced women over the age of 50 end up with a pension worth £100,000 less than that of their former husband. According to a survey of over-50s divorced people and married couples across Britain by the Office for National Statistics, the average pension pot of divorced women totals £131,000, compared to the