It is often the case that those who are involved in divorce proceedings want to get married again. However, they can easily find themselves regretting it if they are too eager to tie the knot with someone else.
Obviously, in most divorces there are financial/property matters to sort out, and this will mean one party or the other (or both) having to make an application to the court for the court to sort it out (called a ‘financial remedies application‘). However, the court cannot entertain such an application from a party who has remarried – this is the ‘remarriage trap’.
Potentially, falling into the remarriage trap could be disastrous, meaning that you lose your entire share of the divorce settlement. It is therefore essential that you take steps to avoid it.
So how do you avoid falling into the remarriage trap? Well, the obvious way is not to remarry, but that isn’t exactly very helpful. The best solution is to ensure that all financial/property matters have been finalised before you remarry. If that is not possible, then at least a financial remedies application should be made before you remarry. Until now it has been possible for the party issuing the divorce proceedings to include the application in their divorce petition, but this may not be possible in future, as we explained in this post. If it is not possible then the application will have to be made separately.
If your divorce settlement has not yet been finalised and you are considering remarrying then you should seek specialist advice from a family lawyer. Family Law Cafe can help you find this advice. You can call us on 020 3904 0506 or email us at info@flc.chcdigital.com.
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