Family Law Declarations
The Conveyancing Committee would like to remind colleagues that the recommended suite of precedent Family Law Declarations can be viewed on the Law Society website under the Conveyancing Committee Precedent section.
It is vital for practitioners to take full and detailed instructions of clients’ history of marriage, civil partnership and cohabitation prior to drafting the relevant FHPA declaration. The precedents are drafted to deal with most routine situations, but practitioners should adapt them to meet the facts of individual cases as necessary, and it may be appropriate, in some cases, to use parts of two or more precedents. For this reason and to assist colleagues the committee recommends that the draft FHPA declaration should be furnished in ‘mark up’ form showing the deviation from the precedent form(s), when issuing any such amended precedent Family Law Declaration for conveyancing or mortgage purposes.
The Committee would also like to remind colleague of the importance of the continued use of Family Law Declarations and their implications for Registration of Title (see the committee’s Practice Note of 8 October 2021).