Adoption

The Children and Families Act 2014 (CFA 2014) made changes to adoption, in particular as to post-adoption contact, the emphasis to be placed on ethnicity and fostering to adopt. The Public Law Outline (PLO 2014) as set out in Family Procedure Rules 2010, PD 12A applies to adoption proceedings, see Practice Note: Public law children procedure—Public Law Outline.

General principles

The Adoption and Children Act 2002 (ACA 2002) embodies the law on adoption and was aimed at improving adoption support to encourage more people to come forward to adopt. It places a duty on local authorities to make arrangements for the provision of adoption support services to promote adoption as a means of giving looked after children the chance to live in permanent homes.

The framework of ACA 2002 is intended to:

  1. simplify the adoption process

  2. make the child’s welfare a paramount consideration in decisions on adoption

  3. avoid delay

  4. make provision for the process of adoption and the conditions for the making of adoption orders, including measures

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Monumental Supreme Court decision on matrimonialisation and sharing principle (Standish v Standish)

Family analysis: The Supreme Court’s much-anticipated judgment confirms unequivocally that the sharing principle does not apply to non-matrimonial property. Sharing of matrimonial property will usually be 50:50, though there may be a departure from equal division where justified. Non-matrimonial property typically has either a pre-marital origin, or, where it is received during the currency of the marriage, an external source (eg an inheritance). Title to an asset is expressly not determinative as to whether that asset is or is not matrimonial. Though non-matrimonial property may become matrimonial (ie ‘matrimonialisation’) this will depend on how the parties have been dealing with the asset and whether, over time, they have been treating that asset as shared between them. The concept of matrimonialisation is to be applied neither ‘widely’ nor ‘narrowly’ (contrary to what the Court of Appeal had held)—again, the enquiry should focus on how the parties have dealt with the asset. Where an asset is transferred from one spouse to another with the intention to save tax (as had occurred in the case), this will not normally show that the asset is being treated as shared. The Supreme Court ultimately upheld the decision to dismiss the wife’s appeal, though it did not wholly agree with the Court of Appeal’s reasoning. Pursuant to that decision (made on the sharing basis) the wife would be provided with circa £25m of the total assets figure of circa £132.6m, being half of the matrimonial assets figure of £50.48m. David Wilkinson, solicitor at Slater Heelis, considers the judgment.

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