fbpx

Giving Up Your Career to Get Married? Think Twice!

18th May 2017 By Arman Khosravi

A person who voluntarily prioritises their marriage over their working life may not be entitled to compensation for the earnings foregone if their relationship ends in divorce. The Court of Appeal made that point in ruling on the case of a former headteacher who abandoned her career when she married a doctor who was 16 years older than she.

The woman was in her 40s when she married the semi-retired doctor. She gave up her job as head of a primary school and subsequently only worked as a supply teacher. She sold her house, using the proceeds to purchase a half share of her spouse’s home, which was worth about £960,000. The couple had enjoyed an affluent lifestyle during their eight-year marriage. Following divorce proceedings, a judge ordered the husband to pay his former wife a £140,000 lump sum in order to achieve a clean break.

In challenging that decision, she argued that she had given up full-time employment after her husband assured her that he would look after her financially. As a result, she had lost substantial earnings and her right to a generous final salary pension. She had been left with insufficient resources to purchase a home comparable to the one that she had shared with her husband during the marriage.

In rejecting her appeal, however, the Court noted that she had not been put under any pressure to give up her career and that her husband had not gained financially from her decision. The judge was right to confine his attention to ensuring that her future needs would be met. The standard of living that she had enjoyed during the marriage was not determinative and the judge was entitled to find that she required a housing fund of £450,000, rather than the £700,000 that she had claimed.

Source: Concious

Latest News

Tenants Can Purchase Freehold When Landlord Cannot Be Found

11th June, 2024 By

The Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 gives qualifying leaseholders the right to join together to buy the freehold of their properties – a process known as collective enfranchisement. A recent case demonstrated that this right can be exercised even when the landlord cannot be found. The leaseholders of two flats in a terraced house wished to purchase it from the landlord, but were unable to ascertain his whereabouts and therefore could not serve notice on him under Section 13 of the Act. They therefore applied for an...

Court Refuses to Set Aside Divorce Order Applied for by Mistake

6th June, 2024 By

While the courts have a range of powers to set aside orders, they will only exercise them in limited circumstances. In a somewhat surprising case that has attracted much comment, the High Court declined to set aside a final order of divorce that had been applied for by mistake. A couple separated in January 2023, after more than 21 years of marriage. In October that year, while financial remedy proceedings were still ongoing, the wife's legal representatives inadvertently applied for a final order of divorce in respect of her instead...

Waiting Time for Grants of Probate Falls

3rd June, 2024 By

Following concerns last year about delays in processing probate applications, recent figures from HM Courts and Tribunals Service show that waiting times for grants of probate are continuing to improve. The average time from submission of a probate application to probate being granted fell to 11.3 weeks in March 2024, a decrease from 13.7 weeks in February and 13.8 weeks in January. This is the lowest figure since March 2023, when the average was 10.8 weeks. The longest waiting time since then was in November, at 15.8 weeks: that month,...

Late Appeal Against Tax Penalties Rejected

31st May, 2024 By

It is incumbent on taxpayers to make sure they fully comply with their obligations to file returns and pay any tax due. The point was illustrated by a recent case in which a taxpayer whose return had not been received by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) failed to persuade the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) that he should be permitted to appeal against the resulting penalties. On the evening of 31 January 2014, the man had completed his 2012/13 Income Tax return on HMRC's website. Shortly afterwards he went to Cyprus, and...