Marilyn Stowe spoke to Phil today about issues of divorce. He had a few questions of his own to ask her:
I married my boyfriend three weeks ago. When we returned from our honeymoon I noticed that the name in his passport is completely different to who he told me he was. Who have I married and what should I do about this?
From a family law perspective, she can get out of this, from a criminal perspective its definitely quite worrying. This is an extremely iffy situation, in the course of may career if I've ever come across different names it normally leads to bad things; fraud, criminal intent, bigamy come to mind. From a criminal aspect if she cant get a satisfactory answer from her new husband she could go to the police. The thing that strikes me is that this is an unusual case, and the opportunity for nullity is there. If you enter a marriage by mistake, i.e. marrying someone who isn't who you thought they were, you can get the marriage annulled.
Myself and my partner plan to have a civil partnership. Does this offer the same protections and rights as marriage?
Heterosexual couples can only get married and that's currently the only way to legally enter a relationship. But gay couples have a choice, you can do both CV or marriage. Civil partnership is more of a signing ceremony and people prefer that. In terms of breakdown they are both the same, so on the breakdown of either they're the same. In the event of dissolution of a partnership of both is the same thing.
I want a divorce and my husband says he will never part with any money as part of a financial settlement no matter what the court says. Can I enforce a financial settlement if he refuses to pay?
When people get divorced they say things, sometimes people think they know the law, they make all sorts of threats. Disobeying a court order is a dangerous thing and you can end up in prison. You might face a judgement summons.
During an argument I agreed to a divorce with my wife. That evening I returned home to find my wife has thrown all my belongings out of the house and refuses to let me in to the property. Do I have any rights to enter the property as I have nowhere to live?
Of course, you can't throw anybody out of a property without a court order. If they change the locks some people would just force their way in, some people might get the police, a solicitors letter, go to court. The whole thing here is to avoid an allegation of domestic violence, some people will deliberately do something which they hope the other person will reciprocate to them violently. So the important thing is to keep calm on both sides.
I have been married twice previously and am planning to remarry again soon. Since my last divorce I have built up substantial assets which I want to protect. Can a pre-nup (prenuptial agreement) completely guarantee protecting these assets?
There is no question that the best way to protect his assets is to not get married in the first place. You can think about a pre-nup but you need to enter into it on the basis that it might not be legally binding at the end of the day. The court will most likely provide for your needs for life, irrespective of your length of marriage, in which case if you're the richer party you could be hit pretty hard.
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