Thursday May 31, 2012 at 9:00am
Marriage brings with it certain legal rights and responsibilities, not least of which is joining a couple’s assets. When a couple are simply living together (and there is no living together agreement), assets they buy and share jointly can be difficult to sort out if they split up. Tying the knot formally treats assets jointly and both have a claim to them in the event of a divorce. To the less romantic out there, it could be seen that it formalises a relationship, but that i....
Monday May 28, 2012 at 9:00am
I don’t know about you but, generally speaking, I think customer service is getting worse, not better. I seem to be constantly disappointed by service providers, whether it is waiting for a plumber to call me back, expecting my broadband to function at the speed advertised, getting service with a smile in a coffee shop or expecting a civil person to be on the other end of the phone when I call a business with an enquiry. The simple solution I guess is to lower my expectatio....
Thursday May 24, 2012 at 9:00am
There seems to have been an awful lot about parenting and families in the news over the last week or so, so I make no apologies for this being my second blog of the week on parenting! The main talking point of course has been the free vouchers for parenting classes launched by the Government last week. It was dismissed by opponents of the Government – which appears to be most people these days – as being, quite literally, more evidence of a nanny state. It even spawned ....
Monday May 21, 2012 at 9:00am
All parents are worried about the effect on their children of divorce or separation. Ultimately, the family courts will make decisions in the interest of the children if parties are unable to agree, but it is always better for children to see that their parents have been able to work things out between them by putting the children first.
Of course, this is easier said than done when a relationship breaks down and emotions are high, but it is possible to share the care of your c....
Thursday May 17, 2012 at 9:00am
I was on a stag do the other week (yes, divorce solicitors do still get invited to weddings and the associated festivities) and I was chatting to a chap who was convinced that the only thing solicitors wanted to do in divorce cases was go to court. He was absolutely adamant that this is the norm, all cases end up before a judge and that solicitors actively promoted this because they made more money out of it. It took me some time to convince him that this was not correct.
I....
Monday May 14, 2012 at 9:00am
Last week there was a glimmer of hope for those dads going through a difficult divorce and struggling to reach agreement on when they can see their children. It came from an unusual source – the Queen. In her speech to Parliament laying out what legislation will be tackled in the forthcoming Parliamentary session, she confirmed that the Children and Families Bill would finally get a hearing. This has been talked about for some time and I won’t dwell on the detail of it ....
Thursday May 10, 2012 at 9:00am
So Sir Paul Coleridge, one of the country’s leading family court judges, has launched his campaign to promote marriage. Heralded as a champion for weddings in some of the newspapers, he has lashed out at the country’s apparent “divorce addiction” fuelled by celebrity magazines like Hello! and believes there is clear proof that married couples are more likely to stay together.
He also said there was evidence that children with settled families performed....
Tuesday May 8, 2012 at 9:00am
I’ve decided to muscle in on Andrew’s blog (again) and pick up on the theme of litigants in person where he left off last week (Rise of the DIY Divorce).
The first point to flag is that, as name changes are in vogue, people who decide to represent themselves in court are no longer to be referred to as LIPs (Litigants in Person) but rather SRLs (Self Representing Litigants). I can’t quite see what purpose this serves but the fact remains that whether they are L....
Thursday May 3, 2012 at 9:00am
DIY divorce is still a hot topic in family law it seems. In the current economic climate, it is no surprise that people are looking for any means possible to cut back on expenditure. Divorce is one area where they feel they can do this though I have flagged already why I feel people may be selling themselves short by doing this. Apart from anything else, the cost of the actual divorce will not include sorting out – and drawing a legal line under – a range of issues, inc....