Wednesday 9th April, 2008

After her marriage to Paul McCartney in June 2002, Heather Mills was recently awarded £24.3 million by the Judge dealing with the financial side of their divorce. So is the McCartney experience relevant to the average marriage breakdown?

Firstly, the law is the same regardless of the wealth of the couple. So, in any marriage, the Court’s first consideration will always be the needs of any children. The parent with primary care of the children will usually get a higher award because they have greater needs and their contribution to the marriage (by raising the children) will continue.

 

Heather got a higher award than she would have received otherwise because she shares the care of her daughter, Beatrice and will continue to do so for many years. The contributions which both spouses made to the relationship are important – including non financial contributions like looking after the home and children.

 

In all divorces, the Courts then have to look at all the other circumstances, like the length of the marriage, the ages of the parties, their incomes and other financial resources. For this reason, the first step for each couple is to exchange full and frank information (which lawyers refer to as “disclosure”) about their circumstances and resources. The evidence is important; if inaccurate information is provided, it’ll weaken any order the court makes and might even result in criminal proceedings. 

 

For most couples this exercise can be done amicably but Paul and Heather’s experience was not straightforward; Heather’s case was harmed because her evidence was not consistent and she was a ‘less than impressive witness’. 

 

So, having established the facts in any case, the Judge then has to work out how to achieve fairness taking account of all the relevant factors.

 

Although the award that Heather received was more than most of us can ever realistically expect, it was far less than she wanted. This was partly because it was a short relationship; if your relationship is short, your can expect to get less out of it than if you are together for a longer period. It’s important to remember that the Court is less bothered about the length of the marriage than the length of the relationshipso cohabitation which ‘moves seamlessly into marriage’ will count. 

 

In Heather’s case, the Judge aimed to provide her with enough to meet Beatrice’s needs and to achieve fairness, taking account of all the circumstances. Consequently, even though the Court was asked to look at a range of different factors and the available wealth was more than average, this case was considered on broadly the same factors as most divorces.