Law Commission publishes scoping report on financial remedies on divorce and dissolution

20 December 2024

The Law Commission has published a scoping report on the law governing finances on divorce and the ending of a civil partnership, which concludes that the law needs to be reformed and presents government with four models that reform could take, ranging from codifying the current case law to introducing default rules to determine the division of assets. 

The report also looks at whether there is a potential for reform in specific areas, examining in Chapter 10 whether there is scope for reform in relation to the treatment of pensions on the division of parties’ assets on divorce. 

In relation to pensions, the report finds that the key issue that law reform would need to consider is whether pension sharing should be the default statutory position or at least whether there should be explicit mention of pensions as one of the factors for consideration. Proponents of a default statutory position argue that it would encourage divorcing couples and their advisers to engage in pension asset division and would underline the importance of dealing with pensions in any financial arrangement. 

Another question for law reform, according to the scoping report, is whether, if a default statutory position were to be adopted, equal sharing of pensions should be the starting point. Furthermore, any statutory default to pension sharing would require a comprehensive reconsideration of how pensions are valued, to mitigate the costs and delays entailed in instructing a pensions on divorce expert (PODE), which is currently a necessary step to ensure accurate pension valuation in many cases.

 29 Bedford Row's Nicholas Allen KC, Nicholas Bennett and Petra Teacher were amongst the Family Law Bar Association (FLBA) members who contributed to meetings with the Law Commission when they were gathering information/evidence for their report.

Financial remedies on divorce and dissolution: Summary of scoping report

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