B v B (Declaration as to Marital Status) [2026] EWHC 1317 (Fam)

Judgment date: 3 June 2026

https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/fam/2026/1317

David Rees KC (sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court). The husband sought a declaration of marital status under s 55 of the Family Law Act 1986, asserting that the parties’ customary marriage under Cameroonian law had been dissolved by a customary divorce. The court found that no customary divorce had taken place and that the marriage was in any event void under English law.

Background

The husband applied under s 55 FLA 1986 for a declaration as to marital status. Although both parties accepted that they had undergone a customary marriage ceremony, they disagreed as to when the marriage took place and whether it had subsequently been dissolved; [2].

The husband contended that the parties’ customary marriage under Cameroonian law took place in 2003 and had been dissolved by a customary divorce obtained in Cameroon in 2022 and sought recognition of that divorce in England and Wales; [5].

The wife contended that the parties had not even known each other in 2003, and had actually married in 2008; and that no customary divorce had occurred; [17]–[21].

Findings of fact

The judge preferred the wife’s evidence. The court found that the parties underwent a customary marriage ceremony in 2008 and that no customary divorce had taken place; [40], [42].

Validity of the marriage

The court heard expert evidence on the status of customary marriages under Cameroonian law. That evidence established that a customary marriage ceremony alone does not create a marriage recognised under Cameroonian civil law. Additional registration procedures are required, although a customary marriage remains capable of recognition if those formalities are completed; [45].

Applying Tousi v Gaydukova [2023] EWHC 404 (Fam), the court concluded that the parties’ 2008 customary marriage was capable of recognition under Cameroonian law but had never acquired civil validity there because the necessary registration procedures had not been satisfied. The marriage therefore constituted a void marriage in English law rather than a non-qualifying ceremony; [46].

Section 58(5) FLA 1986 prevents the court from making a declaration that a marriage was void from its inception. The appropriate remedy was therefore a decree of nullity rather than a declaration under s 55; [47].

The judge also directed that an unredacted copy of the judgment be disclosed to the Secretary of State, having found that both parties knowingly participated in providing false information to the UK authorities in connection with the wife’s entry to the United Kingdom; [53]–[55].