Divorce isn’t easy for anyone involved. The husband and wife, kids, grandparents, friends. Everyone will be affected in different ways. The key thing is to navigate the process and negotiations in as calm a sea as possible. In my experience, dads can often feel like they get the rawest deal…
We’re happy cohabiting, why bother getting married? Like millions of others our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and his partner, Carrie Symonds, have chosen to live together rather than get married. In fact, I read that around 3.4 million people in the UK now live together as cohabitees rather than getting…
Divorcing couples with children often find reaching an agreement about the care of their children after divorce or separation pretty difficult. Those who cannot reach an agreement amicably find themselves asking the family court to decide. Either party can make an application for what is known as a child arrangements…
What is a special guardianship order? A Special Guardianship order is one that members of a child’s family may consider where the child or children are being cared for permanently by family members other than their parents. This could apply for example to grandparents, aunts or uncles. There are a…
Since the early 1990s Child Support Agency (CSA) (now called the Child Maintenance Service (CMS)) has dealt with financial support for children. This means that in the majority of cases the court cannot decide how much child support is payable. However, where one or other parent lives outside England or…
It costs the British economy approximately £71.1m per year according to the NHS. The personal cost is immeasurable. Its victims make up an estimated 70% of those out of work. Stress. We’ve all heard of it and at some point during our lives (probably more than we’d care to admit)…
The last few months have been strange, to say the least. With seemingly mixed understanding of the danger outside, the Government asked us to stay inside as much as possible and closed businesses and schools. Whilst key and essential workers carried on the majority of people were either furloughed or…
ADR seems to be a new buzz word in family law at the moment. Alternative Dispute Resolution has been mentioned much in context of family mediation, as mediation is an example of ADR. However, an alternative route to mediation is collaborative divorce. I’ve talked about collaborative family law a number…
Prompted by a newspaper headline our family lawyers engaged in a lively (remote) debate recently on the controversial topic of cheating. What is it? How do you know someone has cheated in a relationship? Does it matter when it comes to the process of divorce? What is cheating in a…
For divorcing couples the current economic situation caused by coronavirus is causing concerns about whether they can still reach a financial settlement or indeed whether that should be avoided given such financial uncertainty. Of course, if your relationship is over you may well want to move on completely, and that…
The world has changed for all us all in the last week or two, including for us divorce lawyers. Restrictions imposed upon movement and contact with loved ones mean it is tempting to think that we can do nothing whilst we are in coronavirus “lockdown”. Some things however don’t change…