Reports in the press this weekend suggest that one in five divorces in the United States now involve Facebook.

The research from the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers reveals that 20% of divorce cases now cite the social networking website Facebook as a contributory factor to the marriage breakdown.

80% of divorce lawyers in the US are also reporting a spike in the number of cases where social media is used to provide evidence of cheating and infidelity.

Of course Facebook isn’t really the problem, it is simply the available media used to locate old flames or engage in inappropriate conversations or sharing of material.

Before Facebook, there was Friends Reunited in the UK which performed a similar function in reuniting old school friends. Email and mobile phone technology also provided the ability for spouses to communicate with other parties.

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There have been reports in the press of a fascinating divorce case involving allegations of missing gold bars from the marital home.

The wife, Christina Brandon, is claiming that her husband took three gold bars worth £62,000 from their home on the day he left the family.

Lawyers for Peter Brandon argue that the gold bars had been lying around the house for years and could have been taken at any time.

Allegations about the missing gold bars appear to be part of a wider claim that the husband is failing to disclose a ‘secret fund’ which he failed to disclose at the time of their separation.

Full financial disclosure is an essential part of the divorce process, whether you are able to negotiate a direct settlement or make use of legal services, in the form of mediation, collaboration or litigation.

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Proposed cuts to the legal aid budget announced yesterday could prompt married couples to consider ‘before the event’ insurance to cover the legal costs associated with divorce proceedings.

Legal aid support will no longer be available for most civil cases, including divorce. Only civil cases where life or liberty are at stake will remain eligible for legal aid.

These proposals are aimed at stopping people from resorting to the use of laywers and the court system whenever they have a dispute. As a result, we could see greater use of tools such as mediation and collaborative law to reach divorce settlements.

Getting married in the knowledge that often expensive divorce proceedings will be out of financial reach should the relationship break down could prompt couples to consider insuring against such an eventuality.

Alternatively, couples could look to prenuptial agreements as a future solution to avoid hefty legal bills.

Following the outcome of the Supreme Court judgement in the Radmacher appeal last month, prenups have greater legal weight and should become more widespread in the UK as a result.

Whilst divorce insurance is only currently available in the UK from one company, it has been around in the US since 2005. Couples might expect to pay around £750 as a one-off premium for such a policy.

With the average cost of legal fees for divorce in the UK at around £13,000, this might be a price worth paying. Whether it would make for an appropriate wedding gift between spouses or not is another question!

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Our latest webcast was presented this morning by Informed Choice chartered financial planner Angela Murfitt.

The topic for this webcast was Divorce & Your Financial Planning.

Angela is a Chartered Financial Planner and a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) professional at Informed Choice. She is a Fellow of the Personal Finance Society and an Associate of the Institute of Financial Planning.

You can watch a recording of this webcast at www.brighttalk.com/webcast/22873.

When a couple get divorced the subject of “pensions splitting” often arises.

In the somewhat “sexist” world in which we live it often involves a share of the ex-husband’s pension fund being credited to the ex-wife.

Sometimes, in occupational pension schemes, this can be done by “shadow membership” where the ex-wife effectively becomes a member of the scheme and a proportion of her ex-husband’s pension becomes payable to her.

However, more often the share is carried out by a capital sum being transferred to a pension plan of the ex-wife’s choice (a share of the cash equivalent transfer value or the cash equivalent benefit value where the pension is already in course of payment, of the ex-husband’s pension benefit).

The calculation of the split is often carried out to provide equivalent income for the two parties.

The usual method of calculating what it costs for the ex-wife to have the same income as the ex-husband is to use a suitable annuity rate to work out what share of the pension fund she should have.

Where the ex-wife is younger than the ex-husband it will come as little surprise that she often has to have a higher share of the capital value to ensure she gets the same amount of income. On the surface this may seem unfair but actually it is perfectly fair.

Annuity rates however are at pretty much an all time low and therefore sometimes the parties to the divorce will look to an alternative way of creating the income from the pension split.

Unsecured pension routes offer the alternative of a pension fund that remains invested whilst “income” is drawn from it.

As you can imagine this is not without risk because if high levels of income are withdrawn and investment returns are lower than expected capital erosion of the fund can occur and ultimately this can lead to lower future income.

So as unpalatable as it can seem for some (usually the ex-husband) the annuity route is the one most favoured in the calculation and probably the fairest way to carry out the calculation.

Photo courtesy of Wenburn.