Now could be a good time to split

Published: The Times | 3 January 2012

Jonathan West Head of family writes:

Is it a good idea to divorce in a recession? A sobering thought as we kick off the new year: January 3, the first working day after the Christmas and new-year break, is known in legal circles as Divorce Day or D-Day, being the day that divorce lawyers receive the most inquiries.

The spike — there will typically be more than double the number of inquiries in January compared with any other month — is generally attributed either to the strain of spending family time together over the holiday period being the straw that breaks the camel’s back, or to many spouses who want to divorce having hung on until after the holiday to avoid upsetting their families at that special time. Too much alcohol and the hangover from office-party shenanigans also all have their part to play.

This year lawyers are bracing themselves for a particularly busy January. The December figures from the Office for National Statistics show divorces in England and Wales on the rise again — up by 5 per cent, from 113,949 to 119,589.

At first sight one might reasonably have expected divorce rates to rise sooner. So why has this not been the case until now? One reason could be that many couples took the view that splitting up was unaffordable. For example, if a couple’s matrimonial asset base had halved over the past five years they may already feel poor and the prospect of dividing that pot filled them with horror.

It has long been my view that this could be the wrong way to approach the subject for some people. I would suggest that now may be the right time to cash in your chips and call it quits — at least, if you are the wealthier half of a troubled couple.

Some may find this to be a cynical approach, and to some extent it is, but divorce settlements are essentially best value for the paying spouse when the assets are valued at their lowest.

Is now the time? Who knows — you decide. It seems that many already have and we can confidently expect next year’s figures to show a further increase in divorce rates.

Read the full article at http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/law/article3274187.ece

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