Ancillary relief
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A party to a marriage in the England and Wales, on divorce, nullity or judicial separation, may present claims to a court in England and Wales for ancillary relief, for resolution of financial issues.
Since 1970, the court has had power to transfer ownership of property, order capital lump sums and periodical payments ('maintenance') to be paid by one party to another. Not anymore favouring the concept of the "clean break" to divide broken marriages once for all, courts tend to choose periodical payments in more and more cases. Maintenance orders can be given on nominal or specific terms. Nominal terms are intended to keep the applicant's rights to get maintenance alive while the former partner isn't able to pay. The order can be reviewed any time to match the ongoing changes in financial capacity of the parties. Specific terms are set to review the orders on specific dates the court thinks of as usefull when taking into account the future financial expectations of the parties. An order on specific term may disallow the applicant to apply for further maintenance once the specific term has run out. This is called the "deffered clean break". Such an order may but does not necessarily contain a "lump sum" to be payed at the end of maintenance period.
For more recent petitions, the court can divide ownership of a pension fund, known as 'pension sharing'.
The principal source is section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, which sets out the main factors to be taken into account. The law has developed significantly since the House of Lords gave judgment in the case of 'White v White'. Since then, the Court of Appeal has developed case law on the meaning of 'fairness' and where an equal division is appropriate.
