Family Fees

This may be something you wish and can do yourself. The main advantages to me doing this is that I will personally manage this over the typical 6 to 11 months timescale. This includes me sending a letter to your spouse setting the tone of matters and a timetable and plan to resolve any other issues i.e. finances. The letter may be to ask for financial disclosure or set the tone for you to agree matters directly between you or to refer matters to mediation. It is important to note that divorce will not close off financial claims so you may still need a financial consent order to do that.  

It may be that you have no current assets of any great value, although pensions are often overlooked as assets of value. However, it may be sensible to close off all and any future claims between you which will otherwise remain open, even on divorce. This will ensure no claims can be made against you in life or on death against any post separation acquired assets. Dealing with the paperwork, approving and signing this off and obtaining an order, can typically take anywhere between two to 5 months. 

The work for doing this is the same as above except that the order itself will likely be more complicated and the exact price may depend on exactly what is needed. Typically, the price will be at the base amount, but it may be a bit more where there are pension sharing orders, several properties etc. Again, it is often important to obtain an order, even where matters are agreed or there are no or few assets, to ensure there are no future claims made against you or your estate, on death and to give you peace of mind that your current and future assets are yours to deal with or leave to others as you see fit.  

See the top of this page. This is for a discussion of up to an hour and it includes follow up work in sending you a letter. It may be useful in reassuring you about matters at a limited fee and or to give you a realistic overview of where you stand and your options going forward. It may also provide you with an idea of future costs, or how to limit those and it may in turn save you money.

Obtaining a pre or post nuptial agreement and ensuring it is as binding as possible requires personal appraisal, advice and drafting. An off the shelf pre-nuptial carries a greater risk of not meeting the necessary formalities or taking into account individual circumstances, required to satisfy a Judge that it should be upheld.  If a Judge can see that proper consideration has been given to matters, that the agreement is fair and that everyone is aware of what they are gaining or giving  up (ideally requiring parties to have disclosure of each others assets and to both have legal advice). If this is all met, then the default position is that such agreements should be upheld and parties should be allowed to manage their own affairs. Pre-nuptials are involved and require specialist advice. They can make any future separations simpler and they may be invaluable where parties want to protect their assets on marriage breakdown when that brings a discretionary regime of income and asset division.   

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