A piece by Frances Gibb, Legal Editor, in yesterday’s Times:

Proposals for a five-year limit on maintenance awards in divorce were published yesterday to end huge payouts and massive court costs.

Baroness Deech, a crossbencher, called for a system more like that in Scotland, to end open-ended awards that have made London the divorce capital of the world.

Instead of indefinite maintenance awards, which critics have called a meal ticket for life, her Divorce (Financial Provision) Bill would give guidelines on maintenance and dividing assets. It proposes awarding maintenance for five years, with longer terms only if needed to prevent hardship. [J4MB emphasis. We can be sure gynocentric judges will set the “preventing hardship” bar very high for rich men’s ex-wives.]

The framework would avoid the need for “judge-made law”, which leads to uncertainty and militates against mediation and out-of-court settlements, she said. “Judges are having to intervene, which is not their task, and brings delay,” she said. “There are many accounts of cases where nearly all the assets are wasted on the costs of litigation: in one, a husband was awarded £50,000 but was left with a bill of £490,000 in cost.