Read our Family Law blog posts from the Taylor&Emmet family law team.
As many will know, legal aid for many civil cases which include disputes about the living arrangements for children has been severely curtailed in the last 12 months. The government has recently proposed that the availability of legal aid should be reduced further by bringing in a residency test such Read more…
Binding pre-nuptial agreements became one step closer to becoming law on 27th June 2014 when the House of Lords gave their backing to a draft bill. The current law is that pre-nuptial (also called pre-marital or pre-civil partnership) agreements are one of the factors a court takes into account when Read more…
A Judge in Wales has been highly critical of a local authority which failed to return a nine year old boy to his mother’s care after she withdrew her consent to him being in foster care. The boy had been accommodated while his mother had treatment in a psychiatric unit. Read more…
The Government proposes to implement a Residence Test for people applying for Civil Legal Aid (ie not criminal legal aid). The Residence Test will limit legal aid to those with a “strong connection” with the UK. The Human Rights Joint Committee has prepared a Report particularly focusing upon the likely Read more…
From 10th December 2014 same sex couples in a civil partnership will be able to convert this to a marriage. This announcement from Culture and Equalities Minister Sajid Javid was made on 26th June in Pink News (www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/06/26). Marriage for same sex couples was introduced on 29th March 2014 , Read more…
This was one of the headlines in the news on Monday 23rd June on the BBC and in numerous broadsheet newspapers. A report carried out by two universities and funded by the Nuffield Foundation found that around one in three court applications by Local Authorities to take children into care Read more…
On 16th June a new law came into force criminalising forced marriage. The Home Office definition of forced marriage is ‘one in which one or both spouses do not consent to the marriage but are coerced into it through physical, psychological, financial, sexual and emotional pressure’. The maximum penalty for Read more…
Reports suggest that the authorities anticipate a significant increase in cases of domestic abuse during the World Cup. The suggestion is that extended periods of higher than usual levels of drinking may well lead to an increase in the incidence of abuse within the home. What is not clear is Read more…
Since the cuts to legal aid for family cases in April 2013, there has been a rise in the number of companies offering loans to fund legal costs. These ‘litigation loans’ are only available for financial cases in which the client is likely to receive a settlement with which they Read more…
Terms Used CSA – Child Support Agency CMS – Child Maintenance Service PWC – Parent with Care NRP – Non Resident Parent The Child Support Agency stopped taking on new cases from November 2013 and is to be abolished completely by 2017. It is being replaced by the Child Maintenance Read more…