The new year is al­ready with­in sight. It seemed as if 2025 was anx­ious to be over with, and so 2026 is go­ing to be here in what seems to be the blink of an eye. We saw so many changes dur­ing 2025, and with each change, we hoped and prayed for a bet­ter to­mor­row, not just for our­selves but for those around us and our coun­try.

We wel­comed a new prime min­is­ter, a new cab­i­net and a new chief jus­tice. Some of us may have lost fam­i­ly mem­bers, wel­comed the birth of new ad­di­tions to the fam­i­ly, re­lo­cat­ed, changed jobs, but whichev­er it was, 2025 may have brought some­thing new or some­thing al­tered to our lives. Now, we get ready for a new year.

Let’s con­sid­er what changes can be made in 2026.

Di­vorce

Strange that, as mod­ern as we be­lieve we are as a peo­ple or a so­ci­ety, di­vorce still seems to be a taboo sub­ject, and some peo­ple still view it as a stain on their fam­i­ly or them­selves.

Di­vorce is nei­ther taboo nor a stain. It is an ac­cep­tance that a re­la­tion­ship has bro­ken down, that self-care is nec­es­sary, and that per­son­al growth and de­vel­op­ment should be con­sid­ered. In many in­stances, di­vorce means re­mov­ing chil­dren from tox­ic en­vi­ron­ments and tak­ing care of men­tal and phys­i­o­log­i­cal well-be­ing.

For some, it al­so means phys­i­cal pro­tec­tion. The in­ci­dents of do­mes­tic mur­der and sui­cide in the last few months are a clear in­di­ca­tion that some­times we need to walk away and not wait un­til a bad sit­u­a­tion es­ca­lates be­yond con­trol.

This is your sign; walk­ing in­to a new year, con­sid­er your op­tions if you are in a tox­ic re­la­tion­ship. Do not al­low so­ci­ety’s con­cept of what is taboo and what is not to af­fect your life, growth and safe­ty.

Le­gal mat­ters

There are many peo­ple in­volved in le­gal mat­ters which re­volve around land is­sues, cus­tody mat­ters, prop­er­ty set­tle­ment and even breach of agree­ments. I se­lect­ed these mat­ters specif­i­cal­ly be­cause of the abil­i­ty to set­tle in the ear­ly stages and avoid tri­al.

Many times, we al­low our per­son­al feel­ings and an­i­mos­i­ty to dri­ve our le­gal ac­tion and we re­ject the guid­ance giv­en by our at­tor­neys. This can re­sult in mount­ing le­gal fees, a de­ci­sion from the court that is un­favourable, con­sid­er­able time and en­er­gy ex­pend­ed on pur­su­ing claims and, of course, the stress and anx­i­ety that comes with le­gal ac­tions.

It may sound cal­lous, but, in le­gal bat­tles, the on­ly clear win­ner is some­times the at­tor­neys. Win or lose, at­tor­neys are paid for the ser­vices per­formed. Clients are some­times left dis­grun­tled when they do not get the de­sired out­come and spend many more years and mon­ey pur­su­ing what they be­lieve is the jus­tice owed to them.

In 2026, con­sid­er this: leave the an­i­mos­i­ty aside, con­sid­er rea­son­able out­comes, con­sid­er set­tle­ment dis­cus­sions, and con­sid­er all par­ties’ con­fer­ences with a view to set­tling mat­ters. There are al­ways op­tions for set­tle­ment. In cas­es of tres­pass, land can be val­ued, and some tres­passers can opt to pur­chase.

For those fight­ing over cus­tody is­sues, dis­cuss open­ly the needs of the chil­dren and where they are bet­ter met. In­stead of ma­nip­u­lat­ing chil­dren against ei­ther par­ent, ac­tu­al­ly lis­ten and con­sid­er the child’s point of view. Set­tle­ment saves mon­ey and time, and it should al­ways be dis­cussed.

Es­tate man­age­ment

This should al­ways be a pri­or­i­ty and is not nec­es­sar­i­ly some­thing that should be con­sid­ered by el­der­ly peo­ple alone. Es­tate man­age­ment should be con­sid­ered for any work­ing per­son who is al­ready slow­ly se­cur­ing as­sets. Let me ex­plain the as­pects of es­tate man­age­ment/plan­ning that peo­ple do not con­sid­er.

There are some who elect to name their spouse as ben­e­fi­cia­ries in pen­sion plans and var­i­ous in­sur­ance and em­ploy­ment ben­e­fits. I would strong­ly sug­gest re­con­sid­er­ing this ap­proach. Plac­ing a spouse’s name on all ben­e­fits can some­times re­sult in var­i­ous is­sues, par­tic­u­lar­ly in cas­es of di­vorce.

Some in­sur­ance com­pa­nies do not al­low a ben­e­fi­cia­ry’s name to be re­moved from a pol­i­cy with­out the per­mis­sion of the ben­e­fi­cia­ry. In cas­es of di­vorce, where a spouse re­fus­es to con­sent to a name re­moval, then an or­der has to be sought from the court to have the name re­moved.

There have been in­stances where in­di­vid­u­als se­cured a di­vorce and died sev­er­al years lat­er with­out re­al­is­ing that a for­mer spouse was still named on their poli­cies. Should you have a will leav­ing the ben­e­fits of a pol­i­cy where a ben­e­fi­cia­ry is al­ready named, the ben­e­fit will go to the ben­e­fi­cia­ry named on the pol­i­cy. Imag­ine for a mo­ment that you have chil­dren and pos­si­bly re­mar­ried, but all your ben­e­fits now be­come due to your for­mer spouse. This will need to be chal­lenged in court and re­sult in count­less dif­fi­cul­ties for all par­ties.

As we walk in­to a new year, let us re­con­sid­er our ap­proach to le­gal is­sues. The world is lit­er­al­ly at our fin­ger­tips. In a mat­ter of sec­onds, we can find at­tor­neys, get quick in­for­ma­tion and make more in­formed de­ci­sions. If you are con­sid­er­ing set­tle­ment, di­vorce, or es­tate man­age­ment, speak to a pro­fes­sion­al and get the nec­es­sary guid­ance.

Do not con­tin­ue to re­ly on in­for­ma­tion from friends, fam­i­ly and peo­ple who do not nec­es­sar­i­ly know bet­ter. We are walk­ing in­to a new year; let us make pos­i­tive changes.