Ancillary Relief in UK Law

In seeking to achieve a fair outcome, there is no place for discrimination between husband and wife and their respective roles. Traditionally, the husband earned the money, and the wife looked after the home and the children. If, in their different spheres, each contributed equally to the family, then in principle it matters not which of them earned the money and built up the assets. There should be no bias in favour of the money-earner and against the home-maker and the child-carer.

It follows necessarily from this that each party concerned in claims for financial provision and property adjustment (or other forms of ancillary relief not material in the present case) owes a duty to the court to make full and frank disclosure of all material facts to the other party and the court. The legal basis of that principle, and the justification for it, are to be found in the statutory provisions to which I have referred.

However, in the Family Division there still remains the necessity for some starting point. That starting point, in my judgment, is that costs prima facie follow the event (see Cumming-Bruce L.J. in Singer v. Sharegin (1984) FLR 114 at p. 119) but may be displaced much more easily than, and in circumstances which would not apply, in other Divisions of the High Court.

Important too is the general proposition that, formal agreements, properly and fairly arrived at with competent legal advice, should not be displaced unless there are good and substantial grounds for concluding that an injustice will be done by holding the parties to the terms of their agreement.

Equally he is not bound to adopt a conclusion upon which the parties have agreed. But this independence must be matched by an obligation to eschew over-elaboration and to endeavour to paint the canvas of his judgment with a broad brush rather than with a fine sable. Judgments in this field need to be simple in structure and simply explained.

The phrase "family assets" is a convenient short way of expressing an important concept. It refers to those things which are acquired by one or other or both of the parties, with the intention that they should be a continuing provision for them and their children during their joint lives, and used for the benefit of the family as a whole. It is a phrase, for want of a better, used by the Law Commission, and is well understood.

I wish also to make the point that, even in the Family Division, a spouse who seeks to extend her claim for ancillary relief to assets which appear to be in the hands of someone other than her husband must identify, and by reference to established principle, some proper basis for doing so. The court cannot grant relief merely because the husband's arrangements appear to be artificial or even 'dodgy'.