Family Law lookahead – 2026

In the latest of the firm’s series of Lookaheads for 2026, and now comfortably into the clutches of a warmer and lighter February, we have carried out some family law horizon scanning to see what changes or themes might be coming into view.

The current climate and feeling in family law is mixed and varied. At the end of 2025, parties were hit with news of cuts to court sitting times (exacerbating an already overburdened court system) and parties are very much being encouraged to consider private and non-court alternatives (arbitration, mediation, private hearings) to resolve matters.

We can now also see the potential for far reaching reform in various areas – the current Pathfinder pilot would essentially radicalise the approach to children law proceedings and there is also possible future reform to cohabitation and financial remedies with the announcement of various consultations.

Following our horizon scanning, here are our top themes from our lookahead below.

Reform

Cohabitation

Family structures have evolved enormously over the past two decades. Marriage rates are declining and there are an estimated 3.6 million cohabiting families (or 1 in 5 families) – and this number is growing. The Government, as part of their manifesto, committed to “strengthening the rights and protections available to women in cohabiting couples” and have now announced a full consultation on this subject in Spring 2026.

This is obviously the first step in any possible reform, and it is not anticipated that this will be a ‘quick’ turnaround given the nature of the topic and the scope of the consultation (see below).

Financial remedies and nuptial agreements

Together with the proposed consultation on cohabitation reform, the Government will also be consulting on the issues set out by the Law Commission in relation to the law on financial remedies on divorce. The current law, enshrined in the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 – so now over 50 years old – has been criticised for being out of date and not reflective of current society and family structures.

The Law Commission’s scoping report into financial remedies on divorce was published in 2024 so there does seem to be some momentum here – the aim is to consider cohabitation as well as financial remedies on a divorce, together, for consistency.

You can read our article here for a full account of this report – please note it is a scoping report so does not make any specific recommendations but rather highlights issues and considers potential areas for reform.

The Government is also considering the Law Commission’s 2014 recommendations on nuptial agreements. Despite nuptial agreements being very much on the rise, this report has laid stagnant ever since and is now some 12 years old now.

This subject is of real importance given the increasing number of couples entering into nuptial agreements and the public attention this attracts. There have been two key recent family law cases discussing this – Helliwell v Entwistle discusses the impact of fraudulent non disclosure on the nuptial agreement and, more recently, the highly publicised case of Loh v Loh- Gronager [2025] EWFC 483 looks at the impact of ‘deplorable’ behaviour throughout the marriage in a ‘big money’ case where the husband’s pre-nuptial entitlement was reduced.  

You can read some of our previous articles on these subjects here.

Children

In a somewhat timely manner, given it was recently children’s mental health week (week of 9 February 2026), we consider whether, as promised (although with no set timeframe), the presumption of parental involvement will be repealed. We wrote about this back in October 2025 and you can read the article here.

The presumption has been a source of controversy in cases where there is domestic abuse or allegations of domestic abuse. The Ministry of Justice’s Harm Panel report (back in 2020) examined the statutory presumption of parental involvement and called for an ‘urgent review’ of the presumption to assess the impact on cases and emphasised that child safety must take precedence over contact. This is also key when considering children are victims in their own right if they see or experience domestic abuse pursuant to the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.

The Government said the presumption will be repealed ‘when parliamentary times allow’ – it will be interesting to see how much time and attention will be devoted to this in light of the other consultations announced.

Changes to practice

AI and tech

Family law practice has evolved over the last 5 years – the HMCTS portal is now well established and from March electronic bundles will be the norm. Practitioners are also expecting the mandatory roll out of the private children law online portal this year.

The continued adoption of AI inevitably has an impact on proceedings both in terms of communication and action between litigants (recording, transcripts, doctoring of evidence) as well as in relation to how lawyers can use and harness these advances to better serve their clients. There have been some eyewatering judgments where AI has been used to the detriment of clients – so real caution is needed.

Technology, and particularly AI, is moving at a fast pace and lawyers need to adapt and keep up whilst maintaining privacy and confidentiality for clients. If AI can assist strategy and case management and ultimately keep costs reduced for clients, this could be a clear benefit, but with the very sensitive case information held on family matters it will need to be handled appropriately– it will be interesting to see coming changes this year.

Conclusion

The family law landscape is certainly evolving – the financial remedies transparency pilot has been further extended into 2027, we have the Pathfinder pilot continuing in various regions of the country and prospect for reform as highlighted above. At what pace and in what manner any reform takes place remains to be seen but there are positive glimmers too.

One such glimmer is that the government has also announced that they intend to roll out the Domestic Abuse Protection Notices and Orders (DAPNs and DAPOs) nationally (again we await a timeframe). The report of December 2025 was certainly positive in this regard about the ‘game changing’ nature of these orders.

Overall, lawyers need to be robust and adaptable to the various changes on the horizon and guide their clients through. Although certain consultations and reforms have been announced, we do not have any real clarity on timescale or manner of reform – we will continue to watch with optimism and interest to see what changes materialise on the horizon.