OLS Solicitors Blog
Later-life divorce: the risk profile family lawyers underestimate
Later-life divorce: the risk profile family lawyers underestimate
Later-life divorce is often discussed in terms of rising numbers. In practice, its significance lies elsewhere. These cases carry a different risk profile — legally, financially and professionally — and treating them as routine family matters with longer marriages attached is increasingly problematic.
As practitioners, we are seeing a growing cohort of clients in their 50s, 60s and beyond whose separations sit at the intersection of family law, pensions, estate planning and vulnerability. The law may be familiar, but the consequences of getting advice wrong are magnified. Outcomes that might be workable for a 40-year-old client can be actively harmful when applied later in life.
This is not simply a demographic shift. It is a structural change in the nature of the work.
Why conventional divorce frameworks fall short
Later-life divorce exposes the limits of standard assumptions about fairness, needs and future planning. These cases are rarely about rebuilding earning capacity or supporting dependent children. Instead, they focus on maintaining stability, income security and housing for the remainder of a client’s life.
Financial reality: pensions, income and illiquid wealth
In later-life divorce, pensions frequently eclipse all other assets. Defined benefit schemes, in particular, can dominate negotiations and introduce difficult moral and practical questions.
The emotional weight of accumulated lives
Later-life divorce carries an emotional density that is easy to underestimate. Homes, possessions and savings are not simply assets; they are repositories of memory and identity.
Adult children: invisible participants in the dispute
The absence of dependent children does not remove family dynamics from the equation. Adult children often become influential voices, particularly where one parent appears more vulnerable.
Practical challenges and evidential fragility
Later-life cases also present practical difficulties that affect how work must be delivered.
The unavoidable overlap with private client advice
Later-life divorce almost always necessitates a wider review: wills, powers of attorney, pension nominations and estate planning structures must all be revisited.
A recalibration, not an add-on
Later-life divorce is not simply mainstream family work with a longer timeline.
Lara Jayne Davies
Solicitor, OLS Solicitors
