Articles tagged as Family Law
Latest Law Papers tagged as Family Law
Including law essays, dissertations, problem questions, case summaries, and law lectures, suitable for law students working towards their LLB / LLM qualifications or those studying for the new SQE.
X City Council v MB, NB and MAB [2006] EWHC 168 (Fam)
Case Summaries
MAB, aged 25, had autistic spectrum disorder and lacked capacity to marry. His parents wished him to marry a cousin in Pakistan; the court considered declarations and safeguards. ...
Last modified: 6th Nov 2026
Gandy v Gandy (1885) 30 Ch D 57
Case Summaries
A daughter could not enforce a maintenance covenant in her parents’ separation deed. Her mother could sue in equity, but the appeal was left pending while she sought increased alimony. ...
Last modified: 5th Nov 2026
Financial Matters During Marriage
Case Summaries
Financial Matters During Marriage. Before the Married Women’s Property Act 1882 a woman’s personal property was transferred automatically to her husband on marriage; her real property came under her husband’s control but… ...
Last modified: 5th Nov 2026
B v C (Surrogacy: Adoption) [2015] EWFC 17
Case Summaries
B v C [2015] EWFC 17: adoption following surrogacy, legal parenthood, the exception for relatives and the child’s lifelong welfare. ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Should unmarried partners gain financial rights on separation?
Family Law
Unmarried partners have limited financial rights on separation. Reform could protect those who sacrifice earnings to care for children. ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
X and Y (Children: Adoption Order: Setting Aside), Re [2026] UKSC 13
Case Summaries
An adoptive mother, supported by her adopted daughters and their natural mother, sought revocation of valid adoption orders after the adoption broke down. The Supreme Court held that the High Court has no inherent (parens patriae) jurisdiction to revoke a validly made adoption order. Background X and Y, then aged five and four, were placed […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Unger and another (in substitution for Hasan) v Ul-Hasan (deceased) and another [2023] UKSC 22
Case Summaries
A former husband died three weeks before a court was due to decide his former wife’s financial claim following their overseas divorce. Could the hearing go ahead against his estate? The answer depended first on the power to make a matrimonial order. The general legislation about claims surviving a death could only matter if that […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
In the Petition of DM [2026] UKSC 32
Case Summaries
A father asked the Scottish courts to order the return of his 14-year-old son from Scotland to Florida under the Hague Convention. The Supreme Court held that the boy’s views could be taken into account when deciding whether return would expose him to a grave risk of harm or an intolerable situation, but that those […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
G v G [2021] UKSC 9
Case Summaries
A court deciding whether a child should return under the Hague Convention may face a separate asylum claim concerning that same child. G v G explains why deciding the return application and putting a return order into effect are two different steps. One parent brought the child to England without the other parent’s consent and […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
In the matter of T (A Child) [2021] UKSC 35
Case Summaries
The High Court was asked to authorise restrictions on a child’s liberty when the statutory secure-accommodation route could not provide a suitable placement. The Supreme Court considered whether the inherent jurisdiction could protect a child in that gap, and what limits applied to its use. The appeal concerned children whom a local authority considers must […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Villiers v Villiers [2020] UKSC 30
Case Summaries
Under the maintenance jurisdiction rules applied in this 2020 case, could a wife seek maintenance in England while her husband’s divorce proceedings were pending in Scotland? The majority held that the English court could hear her application. The Scottish action sought divorce and did not include a claim for maintenance. Facts and earlier decisions The […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
ABC v Principal Reporter and another (Scotland) [2020] UKSC 26
Case Summaries
The UK Supreme Court held that a brother or sister does not have to be given the same formal status as a parent in a Scottish children's hearing in order for article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights to be respected. What is required is a sufficient opportunity, in the circumstances, to take […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
In the matter of D (A Child) [2019] UKSC 42
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court held that a parent cannot consent to living arrangements for a 16 or 17-year-old which confine the child beyond what is normal for that age, and so cannot prevent those arrangements from being a deprivation of liberty under article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Official Solicitor’s appeal was […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
In the matter of NY (A Child) [2019] UKSC 49
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court held that the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction can still be used to make a summary order for a child’s return to another country even where the Hague Convention does not require return. It nevertheless allowed the mother’s appeal: the Court of Appeal had not itself assessed whether the child’s welfare required an […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
In the matter of C (Children) [2018] UKSC 8
Case Summaries
A father asked the English court to order the summary return of his two children to Australia under the Hague Convention after their mother, who had brought them for an agreed stay of up to a year, decided that they would not go back. The Supreme Court held that the Convention cannot require summary return […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
R (Steinfeld and Keidan) v Secretary of State for International Development [2018] UKSC 32
Case Summaries
When this appeal was decided in 2018, same-sex couples in England and Wales could marry or enter a civil partnership, while different-sex couples could only marry. The issue was whether the government could justify maintaining that difference while it decided the future of civil partnerships. The Civil Partnership Act 2004 created civil partnership as a […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Owens v Owens [2018] UKSC 41
Case Summaries
Mrs Owens’s marriage had broken down, but under the law then in force that finding did not by itself entitle her to a divorce. Her petition relied on her husband’s behaviour. The appeal concerned the evidence needed to establish that she could not reasonably be expected to live with him. A broken marriage, but no […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Williams and another v London Borough of Hackney [2018] UKSC 37
Case Summaries
Section 20 of the Children Act 1989 allows a local authority to accommodate children but gives it no compulsory power to keep them from their parents. The issue was whether the council had a lawful basis for continuing foster care after a separate period of police protection expired. The police had placed the children under […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Mills v Mills [2018] UKSC 38
Case Summaries
On divorce Mrs Mills received capital which would have enabled her to buy a home without a mortgage. After later transactions left her renting, the Supreme Court held that a court may refuse to increase periodical payments so as to meet all of that rent, even if the payer can afford it. It restored the […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
In the matter of EV (A Child) (Scotland) [2017] UKSC 15
Case Summaries
West Lothian Council asked for a permanence order, with authority to adopt, for EV, who had been in care since birth. The Supreme Court held that such an order can be made only if the court itself finds, from facts proved on the balance of probabilities, that living with each parent is likely to be […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
McDonald v Newton or McDonald [2017] UKSC 52
Case Summaries
On a Scottish divorce, only the part of a pension referable to the marriage counts as matrimonial property. The Supreme Court held that this part is measured by the holder’s whole membership of the scheme up to separation, including years after contributions have stopped and the pension is already in payment, not merely the years […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
Birch v Birch [2017] UKSC 53
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court held that a family court can hear an application to release a former wife from an undertaking, given in a clean-break consent order, to sell the former matrimonial home by a fixed date if she had not by then secured her former husband's release from the mortgage. By a majority it decided […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
In the matter of B (A child) [2016] UKSC 4
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court held by a majority that a child did not automatically lose her habitual residence in England when her mother lawfully took her to Pakistan intending to settle there. Parental intention was relevant but not decisive under the child-focused European concept of habitual residence. Because the child remained habitually resident in England on […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
In the matter of N (Children) [2016] UKSC 15
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court set aside a transfer of care proceedings concerning two Hungarian girls who had lived all their lives in England. A court considering article 15 of the Brussels II revised Regulation must treat the questions whether another court is better placed and whether transfer is in the child's best interests as separate, and […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
In the matter of D (A Child) [2016] UKSC 34
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court struck out a father's appeal against the Court of Appeal's refusal to enforce a Romanian custody order in England. Under the Brussels II Revised Regulation, the United Kingdom had notified only one further challenge: a single appeal on a point of law to the Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court therefore had […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
