The economic upturn is set to herald an increase in the divorce rate, according to lawyers in a survey published today.
More than three quarters of family lawyers say warring couples have delayed the start of divorce proceedings in order to see out the recession, and nearly half of legal firms surveyed said that due to the recession they had seen a decrease in divorces.
The results come from a survey of 85 of Britain’s leading family lawyer firms by Grant Thornton UK LLP as part of its 10th annual matrimonial study.
Nick Andrews, partner in the firm’s forensic and investigation services, said: “In tough economic times, when people’s budgets are tight it is perhaps not surprising to see a fall in the divorce rate.
Now that there is continuing positive economic news, it could be that the divorce rate will start to edge up again.”
The survey has also found that people in their forties are the ones most likely to seek a way out of their marriage.
Some 86 per cent of family lawyers said that the most common age of their clients divorcing was 40 to 49, and 38 per cent said they had seen an increase in the divorcing parties’ ages. This year also showed the highest proportion of long marriages ending in divorce, with 14 per cent of lawyers saying that the majority of divorces they handled were from marriages over 20 years.
The long-running Scot Young divorce case is just one example which shows that cases involving the alleged hiding of assets also show no sign of decline. Only nine per cent of family lawyers said they had no cases of claims of either concealed or missing assets compared to 20 per cent in 2012 and 2011.
The report also highlights the impact of cuts in public funding for family proceedings — particularly the increasing number of divorcees representing themselves.
