Last week, the Government announced its plans for once-in-a-generation reforms to cohabitation law and financial remedy proceedings on separation. Here, our Senior Policy and Public Affairs Manager, Deidre Cartwright, sets out our analysis of what this means for victim-survivors and how these legal changes can be strengthened to ensure fair outcomes in cases of domestic, including economic, abuse following separation.
For too long, victim-survivors of economic abuse have been failed by an outdated legal system.
Cohabiting victim-survivors have no legal recourse to ensure they can safely separate their finances from an abusive partner, while those who are married or civil partnered face a legal system which rarely considers the impact of domestic, including economic abuse, on survivors’ ability to meet their own and their children’s needs. Meanwhile, court proceedings have become a playground for abusers’ coercion and control, preventing survivors from accessing the justice they need to rebuild their lives.
At Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA), we have campaigned for urgent reforms which are grounded in survivors’ lived experiences and that put a stop to abusers’ misuse of the justice system to exert economic control long after a relationship ends. The Government’s new consultation, “A Fairer End to Relationships”, is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make that happen.
The consultation, published last week, proposes landmark reforms across three key areas:
- Financial remedies on divorce and dissolution
- Protection for cohabitants on separation
- Inheritance provision for cohabitants on death
Significantly, the Government is focusing on how it can deliver stronger protections and fairer outcomes for victim-survivors of domestic, including economic, abuse, through financial remedies and cohabitation reforms.
Below, we’ve explained relevant reforms and how they may impact victim-survivors.
Domestic abuse and financial needs
The Government is seeking views on whether the court should give greater weight to the impact of domestic abuse, including controlling or coercive behaviour and economic abuse, when assessing financial need for married couples and cohabitants. This includes consulting on whether the current “gasp” threshold for considering domestic abuse is inappropriate and should be replaced.
We welcome the Government consulting on these much-needed reforms, which have the potential to deliver fairer outcomes for victim-survivors. To access financial remedies, survivors are forced to navigate an outdated legal system that rarely considers the impact of domestic, including economic, abuse when determining their financial needs. For example, whether coerced unemployment, debt or homelessness is relevant when determining whether a survivor and her children’s needs can be met after a relationship ends.
In fact, the threshold is so high that domestic abuse must be seen as ‘’obvious and gross”, causing a “gasp” rather than merely a “gulp”, for the courts to consider it relevant. This leaves many victim-survivors, whose experience of coercive and controlling behaviour is significant and devastating, advised against even raising it in court.
Domestic abuse and misconduct
The Government is also seeking views on how the courts could more effectively recognise the misuse of proceedings as a form of domestic, including economic, abuse, and how they can empower victim-survivors to engage with the court process. This includes consulting on how misconduct during proceedings should be considered when determining financial remedy claims.
We welcome the Government’s decision to consult on increased protections against misuse, which could support survivors to more safely access justice. We know that abusers routinely misuse the court process to coerce and control victim-survivors and sabotage their access to justice – using tactics such as not disclosing or dissipating assets, not attending court, or not complying with court orders. This makes it unsafe and retraumatising for survivors to engage with the court process or forces them to settle for an unfair outcome.
Cohabitation reform
Alongside reforms to financial remedies, the Government is consulting on a framework of rights and protections for cohabiting couples when they separate and how they will differ from the protections offered to married couples. This includes consulting on:
- the definition of a cohabiting relationship and the eligibility criteria
- the rights and protections offered to cohabitees
- an automatic application of rights, with an opt-out option (if both parties consent)
- Inheritance provisions for cohabitation on death
We welcome these reforms as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to extend rights and protections to cohabiting victim-survivors, who currently have no safe route to separate financially from an abusive partner – forced to abandon their home, savings or financial security just to escape. But it is critical that these reforms meet all survivors’ needs and do not give abusers the opportunity to misuse these protections to exert control and cause harm.
That’s why we are pleased to see that the Government is consulting on the impact of these proposals on victim-survivors of domestic, including economic, abuse. This includes considering whether statutory safeguards are necessary to ensure victim-survivors can access these rights and remedies safely and protect against misuse by perpetrators.
Joint mortgage abuse must be addressed within these reforms
While we welcome the ambition of the Government’s proposals, they must go further to safeguard against the devastating harms abusers cause survivors who remain financially trapped with these dangerous perpetrators long after separation.
As set out in our groundbreaking report, ‘Locked into a mortgage, locked out of my home’, 750,000 UK women experience ongoing economic abuse via a joint mortgage they remain trapped in with an abuser long after separation. Abusers use these ties to coerce and control survivors and cause them significant harm, leading to arrears, repossession, credit destruction and homelessness.
Survivors are dependent on divorce and financial remedy outcomes to end these harmful arrangements, by which point an abuser has caused irreversible and devastating harm, while cohabiting survivors have no safe route to ending these arrangements. Due to lenders’ obligation to both parties, as set out through the nature of the joint contract with joint and several liability, they are limited in the steps they can take to prevent these harms.
That’s why we have called on the Government to introduce a legislative solution that would enable lenders to more flexibly prevent economic abuse via a joint mortgage while awaiting a financial remedy outcome. This consultation is an unmissable opportunity to explore these solutions.
Next steps
Over the next ten weeks, we’ll be working closely alongside survivors and cross-sector partners to ensure victim-survivors are at the heart of these reforms. And we’ll continue to call for urgent legislative reforms that will prevent abusers from misusing joint mortgages to cause survivors harm while awaiting financial remedies.
If the Government is serious about halving VAWG, these reforms must prevent abusers from weaponising the legal system to further their control and ensure that the devastating impact of economic abuse is reflected in fair financial outcomes for survivors.
All victim-survivors need safe, fair and more consistent outcomes when separating from an abuser so they can rebuild their lives – regardless of whether they hold a marriage certificate.
