What leads a court to order a husband and his companies to pay £1.5 million towards his wife’s legal costs in financial proceedings in divorce? In a case this month* a husband, Mr M, was ordered to personally pay a…
What are my rights when divorcing?
It is entirely understandable that people seek an answer to the question “what are my rights?” when entering a divorce process. Rights in this context are about entitlement, and what that individual is entitled to. So what are you entitled…
Can I keep the house or will I be forced to sell after divorce?
To enable anyone to answer the question “Can I keep the house or will I be forced to sell after divorce?” for you, you will need to be able to give them a broad idea about what your total “asset…
How long does it take to get a divorce?
This is a question which is at the forefront of people’s minds when they seek advice. How long does the process take? I will answer this with the help of one (celebrity) case which may conclude in a total of…
Delaying the distribution of the assets: what is a Mesher order and a deferred charge?
Family solicitors use previous cases to name things. So we have Calderbank letters from Calderbank v Calderbank, Rose orders from Rose v Rose and Mesher orders from Mesher v Mesher and Hall. I appreciate that this is not too helpful…
Family lawyers, and the Milton Keynes grid system
I was contacted this week and asked to write about a specific problem which has arisen in the life of a reader’s family member, who has suffered a relationship breakdown, and is unmarried, not on the house deeds and is…
What happens if you cannot agree on the value of your car, jewellery or other possessions on divorce?
The difficulty of agreeing on the values of smaller items in a divorce can present a barrier to settlement. However, we have been reminded recently that proportionality is the “name of the game”*. To resolve a financial dispute there needs…
Tempted to take a pre-emptive strike in a divorce and freeze the assets? Here is your judicial warning
Catching up with the new case law this week, I was interested to find that one contained a paragraph titled “A Warning”*. There is usually a need to tease out threads from a judgement, raising different opinions on how those…
How to fast track your divorce, Milton Keynes style
I am always surprised by the extent to which Milton Keynes* is dismissed as a concrete cow wasteland. It is, admittedly, a bit different to anywhere else in the UK . One of the initiatives that is taking place in…
Facebook and family law
Social media certainly has the capacity to get people into legal difficulties. The High Court found last week that a tweet posted by Sally Bercow was libellous, and as a result, she is going to be paying out damages for…