Jersey’s States Assembly has voted to introduce no‑fault divorce. This is not a cultural statement or a moral judgment; it is a necessary process reform that will remove structural causes of conflict and cost from the way couples end their marriages. On 27 February 2026, politicians unanimously backed major changes that replace fault‑based petitions and abolish the three‑year bar, bringing Jersey into line with modern practice.
Divorce vs Finances: Two Distinct Tracks
When couples separate (putting children issues to one side here), there are two separate matters:
- The divorce itself: the legal dissolution of the marriage; and
- The finances: resolving money, property, pensions and maintenance.
It is essential for the public to understand that the legal ground for divorce almost never determines the financial outcome. Where a party includes conduct allegations in an unreasonable‑behaviour petition, those particulars do not, in themselves, influence the financial award. If conduct is genuinely relevant, for example, serious coercive or controlling behaviour, financial dissipation, or conduct of a gross and obvious nature, it must be properly pleaded and evidenced within the financial proceedings, where the court can evaluate it against the established financial criteria. Conduct inserted into a petition for the purpose of securing a divorce is therefore misplaced, and such petitions are also far more likely to be defended, creating delay, cost and unnecessary hostility. The forthcoming move to no‑fault divorce does not change the financial framework; it simply removes these avoidable flashpoints from the divorce process.
How the Current System Bakes in Conflict
Under the Matrimonial Causes (Jersey) Law 1949, parties face a three‑year bar before divorce can be started (absent exceptional circumstances) and must proceed on one of a limited set of grounds. In practice, four commonly used routes are:
- Adultery
- Unreasonable behaviour (UB)
- One‑year separation with the other party’s consent
- Two‑year separation without the other party’s consent
These features have been consistently identified as outdated and adversarial, and were flagged for reform in government consultation work dating back to 2018–2019.
The “One‑Year With Consent” Trap
Many clients prefer not to allege fault. To avoid UB, they aim for the one‑year separation with consent ground. In the interim, they often sign a Separation Agreement (SA) to record their arrangements and their shared intention to divorce on the one‑year ground. Two problems follow:
- Double‑cost: they pay to draft the SA, and later pay again to convert the same terms into a Divorce Consent Order (DCO): duplication driven entirely by the current structure.
- Consent can evaporate: when the year elapses, the would‑be respondent might refuse to give consent on the court form (Form 4). The SA cannot compel that consent. The petitioner must then start again on another ground, typically UB, reigniting conflict and adding avoidable cost.
This is not a rare scenario; it is a predictable consequence of the way the current law is structured.
Fault‑Based Petitions Raise the Temperature
Where the petitioner falls back to unreasonable behaviour, the temperature usually rises immediately. Even carefully worded particulars can feel accusatory, and once blame is introduced, pragmatic financial discussions become harder. This dynamic has been repeatedly recognised in the island’s policy discussions and public commentary around reform: the current law forces couples to assign blame or endure prolonged separation, entrenching bitterness where a neutral pathway would be preferable.
Under the current system, it is entirely foreseeable that a respondent will defend an unreasonable‑behaviour petition that is laden with conduct allegations. Although the divorce ground itself normally has no bearing on the financial outcome, conduct is a recognised exception provided it is properly evidenced and pleaded in the financial proceedings. Where particulars stray into serious allegations that could later be relied upon in the financial proceedings, respondents often feel they have no choice but to defend the petition to avoid any suggestion that they have acquiesced in, or accepted, those allegations. In other words, defending becomes a protective step designed to safeguard their position in the financial case, even though the divorce petition was never the correct forum for those issues in the first place.
This dynamic generates avoidable litigation: defending adds pleadings, process, delay and cost, yet produces no benefit whatsoever in terms of outcome. The new no‑fault system removes this problem entirely. With no allegations, there is nothing to “defend”, and therefore no risk of a respondent feeling compelled to take defensive action simply to protect their position in the finances.
These defended‑petition problems sit alongside a second structural flaw in the current law, the three‑year bar, which forces further duplication and unnecessary litigation.
Why the Three‑Year Bar Forces Even More Avoidable Cost
During the current three‑year bar, couples who cannot agree finances without court help often issue a petition for judicial separation (or seek orders under the 1953 Separation and Maintenance Orders Law) to bring financial matters before the court. When the bar expires, they must then issue a fresh divorce petition and re‑anchor their settlement as a Divorce Consent Order. The reform removes the bar and the need for this two‑stage process, cutting duplication and cost.
Why No‑Fault Divorce Is the Correct (and Overdue) Process Fix
No‑fault divorce removes the need to “pick” a ground or to rely on the other party’s consent. It eliminates the UB fallback and the one‑year consent trap, and it reduces duplication of costs (SA → DCO) driven by delay. The States Assembly’s decision explicitly modernises the law by:
- Allowing a divorce without assigning blame, based on a statement that the marriage has irretrievably broken down;
- Removing the three‑year bar, so couples are not held in procedural limbo; and
- Ending the ability to contest the divorce purely to delay or control the process.
These specific policy directions have been on the table for years, the 2018/19 consultation asked islanders to consider no‑fault, joint filing, removal of the three‑year bar, and removal of the ability to contest, and subsequent ministerial answers in 2024 confirmed that drafting to introduce no‑fault would be prepared for debate. The 2026 vote is the culmination of that pathway.
Crucial Clarification: Grounds Rarely Affect the Money
Clients sometimes believe that alleging adultery or UB will lead to a better financial settlement. In practice, that is not how the system works. Financial outcomes turn on needs, resources, and (where relevant) contributions, not on who issued the petition or what was alleged in it. Where serious conduct is relevant (e.g., coercive control affecting disclosure or dissipation of assets), it should be properly pleaded in the financial proceedings with evidence and case‑management to match, not shoehorned into UB particulars just to secure a divorce. This has been a consistent theme in professional commentary calling the current system a “product of its time” that needlessly mixes procedure with blame.
What Changes — and What Does Not
- What changes: the divorce process becomes an administrative gateway rather than a battleground. No consent forms to chase. No UB as a reluctant fallback. No engineered wait that drives duplication of effort and cost.
- What does not change: the financial framework and the approach to children issues. Those still require careful advice, disclosure, negotiation or adjudication. The reform is about process hygiene, removing a legal structure that manufactures hostility.
Bottom Line
Jersey’s move to no‑fault divorce is a pragmatic upgrade: it strips out a design that creates conflict where none is necessary and adds cost without adding value. It lets couples and practitioners direct their energy where it matters: children, housing, income, pensions, and safe, workable futures, instead of spending time and money navigating traps set by an outdated statute. The unanimous vote on 27 February 2026 reflects that the island is ready to modernise the process and focus on sensible resolution.
For clear, practical advice on separation, divorce and financial arrangements, Parslows’ family team, headed by Barbara Littler, is available to guide you through the process and help you take the right steps from the outset.
Please contact Parslows LLP to arrange a confidential discussion tailored to your circumstances.