Often dubbed ‘divorce month’, January has long been recognised as the time of year when family lawyers see a significant rise in people seeking to end their marriages.
Current Google data supports this trend, showing that UK searches for ‘divorce’ during the week beginning 11th January reach their highest point in the past 12 months.
Family law firms also report a sharp increase in enquiries at the start of the year. Stowe Family Law has recorded a 20% rise in divorce and separation enquiries in January, while Susan Howarth & Co routinely sees increases of up to 40%. This trend is supported by Ministry of Justice data, which shows that divorce applications in the first quarter of the year are statistically higher than during the rest of the year.
Beyond the emotional impact, divorce is also a major driver of financial difficulty. Research from debt management firm Lowell has revealed that separation is one of the leading causes of couples falling into debt.
A survey examining how couples manage finances after separation found several situations to be particularly stressful: deciding what to do with the marital home and any outstanding mortgage (46%), paying off debts a partner had accrued (45%), having their own credit score impacted by their partner’s behaviour (31%), and agreeing how to split savings, investments, and other funds (30%).
When applied at a national level, these figures suggest that thousands of people may be at risk of financial hardship. According to Office for National Statistics data, the UK sees approximately 102,678 divorces each year, averaging 8,556 per month. A 20% January surge in enquiries would equate to around 10,267 divorces, affecting more than 20,000 individuals.
Using Lowell’s survey findings as a guide, around 45% of these individuals could face serious financial pressure. This suggests that as many as 9,240 people may be at risk of falling into debt in January alone, with the ‘divorce month’ spike potentially accounting for an additional 1,848 people experiencing financial difficulty.
John Pears, UK CEO at Lowell said:
“One of the biggest drivers of debt that we see is separation and divorce, third only to job loss and illness. Divorce debt can come from many sources such as the sudden increase in living costs now that each person has to run a household alone, outstanding shared bills, or even the legal fees involved in separating. We even see couples often discovering debts their partner had accumulated during the marriage, sometimes without even knowing about them.
“Households that were managing perfectly well together can quickly find themselves struggling once they split. Rent that was previously affordable on two incomes can become overwhelming when living alone, credit cards can start to creep up, and small debts can snowball.
“We regularly see people who never had financial problems before suddenly facing the stress of debt on top of the emotional impact of separation. For many, it’s a chain reaction: the divorce triggers debt, and that debt can take months or even years to recover from.”
