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Section 45: Supplemental provisions as to facts raising presumption of breakdown

Civil Partnership Act 2004 · 2004 c. 33View on legislation.gov.uk

This provision is omitted
It is retained for historical reference and may not reflect the law currently in force.

Part 2: Civil partnership: England and Wales — Chapter 2: Dissolution, nullity and other proceedings

OMITTED FROM CURRENT TEXT on 2022-04-06 by Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020.

The text below is the provision as originally enacted. It is historical and may not include amendments made before this status change. View the enacted source.

Subsection (2) applies if—

in any proceedings for a dissolution order the applicant alleges, in reliance on section 44(5)(a), that the respondent has behaved in such a way that the applicant cannot reasonably be expected to live with the respondent, but
after the date of the occurrence of the final incident relied on by the applicant and held by the court to support his allegation, the applicant and the respondent have lived together for a period (or periods) which does not, or which taken together do not, exceed 6 months.

The fact that the applicant and respondent have lived together as mentioned in subsection (1)(b) must be disregarded in determining, for the purposes of section 44(5)(a), whether the applicant cannot reasonably be expected to live with the respondent.

Subsection (4) applies in relation to cases where the applicant alleges, in reliance on section 44(5)(b), that the respondent consents to a dissolution order being made.

Rules of court must make provision for the purpose of ensuring that the respondent has been given such information as will enable him to understand—

the consequences to him of consenting to the making of the order, and
the steps which he must take to indicate his consent.

For the purposes of section 44(5)(d) the court may treat a period of desertion as having continued at a time when the deserting civil partner was incapable of continuing the necessary intention, if the evidence before the court is such that, had he not been so incapable, the court would have inferred that the desertion continued at that time.

In considering for the purposes of section 44(5) whether the period for which the civil partners have lived apart or the period for which the respondent has deserted the applicant has been continuous, no account is to be taken of—

any one period not exceeding 6 months, or
any two or more periods not exceeding 6 months in all,

during which the civil partners resumed living with each other.

But no period during which the civil partners have lived with each other counts as part of the period during which the civil partners have lived apart or as part of the period of desertion.

For the purposes of section 44(5)(b) and (c) and this section civil partners are to be treated as living apart unless they are living with each other in the same household, and references in this section to civil partners living with each other are to be read as references to their living with each other in the same household.

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This legislation text comes from legislation.gov.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. These source and reuse terms cover the legislation text, not Remedy's commentary.

Reuse reviewed 21 August 2026 under Open Government Licence v3.0.