Full and final settlement

Snickers Man

A solicitor from another jurisdiction has advised a family member that there is no such thing as a "full and final settlement" of financial matters following a divorce under Irish law.

The implication being that if somebody benefits from a windfall, such as an inheritance or a lottery win, after their marriage had ended and been legally dissolved following a divorce the ex partner can still claim a share of it on the grounds that they would have been entitled to it had they still been married.

Is this true? Or is it more subtle than that.

Stheno

It's true

Snickers Man

Wow!

musefan123

It's true but I'm pretty sure both parties can include an agreement in their seperation deed that they can not claim a share of any future windfall that their partner recieves.

aujopimur

They can come back for more until the day you die, you can exclude them from inheritance.

flaneur

Basically, Irish divorce is pretty much permission to remarry. It's about as close to not being divorced as they could possibly get away with as it was passed during the early 1990s, when Ireland was still a deeply conservative backwater.

We only barely got the current kludge over the line with a margin of less than 1%. Only 50.28% were in favour.

My view it is that couples who don't have dependent kids and who have sorted out their finances and gone their separate ways should be able to draw a line under it.

The legislation seems to be designed to draw things out as long as possible and then make sure that you're never really disconnected, no matter how much you want to be.

I would actually wonder if the Irish situation even complies with European Human Rights law. Although, we probably have some grimey opt out.

I know in my own family a few members actually emigrated in the 80s and 70/ due to marital brake ups and inability to resolve them here. I would not be surprised if there's a significant diaspora of divorcees from that era.

There's a lot more than just the 4 year wait time to revisit when we are looking at this upcoming divorce referendum.

boardsuser1

An uncle of mine got married in 1997, seperated in 1999 and the divorce took place whenever it was.

They had 1 child together and a mortgage on a house.

They bought the house when property was still very cheap here and sold it when the boom took off, long story short they made a killing on it.

She got 75% of the balance after the mortgage was paid off.

He has now remarried but is left paying spousal maintenance for the rest of his days for wife number 1 even though a divorce was granted.

howamidifferent

musefan123 wrote: »

It's true but I'm pretty sure both parties can include an agreement in their seperation deed that they can not claim a share of any future windfall that their partner recieves.

Not true. You cannot sign away your rights even if you want to. Law says you can have the terms revisited at any time no matter how many years have gone by since divorce.

flaneur

Seems like the solution is never get married.
I wonder if this is part of the reason that Ireland's marriage age is now so old?
Male 35.7
Female 33

It's actually the oldest in the world or at least in the top two.