Family and Matrimonial

• Divorce and Money When it comes to dealing with money and divorce, it is important to know what has to be taken into account and the powers available to arrive at fair decisions. For most couples, the basic problem is how to finance two separate households from income and...
• Relationship Break Up and Tax Getting divorced is never a pleasant experience and couples going through the process have a lot to think about. Whilst management of the tax consequences of the split is not normally at the top of their priority list, these can be considerable, even where...
• Pensions and Divorce Divorces among the over-60s are by no means infrequent and, whilst the potential for acrimony arising from issues concerning young children is absent, they often do produce a great deal of dispute regarding the division of the family assets.   There...
• Divorce and the Family Home Family break-up is always complicated and when there is a property involved, things can get very complex indeed. In principle, when a couple are cohabiting (not married or in a civil partnership) the property belongs as of right to whoever is shown on the...
• Post-Nuptial Agreements - the Basics Although divorce rates are in decline, more than 40 per cent of marriages end in divorce (in England and Wales more than 100,000 couples divorce annually) and when one in five of all men and women seeking to end their marriage have already been through one...
• Child Custody Explained Arrangements over the custody of children (called residence arrangements by lawyers) after the breakdown of a relationship are usually best decided without the intervention of the court. Unfortunately, it is not always possible for the two parties to...
• Divorce and Foreign Nationality Approximately one in six marriages in the European Union is between persons of different nationalities. Not surprisingly, approximately one in six divorces also involves spouses of different nationalities. This can make for some complexity on divorce as to...
• Civil Partnerships And Same-Sex Marriage Explained The first civil partnerships were formed on 21 December 2005, after the Civil Partnerships Act 2004 came into effect on 5 December 2005. Same-sex marriages contracted abroad, however, have been recognised as valid civil partnerships from 5 December...
• Business Assets and Divorce Divorce is seldom an easy business, but the problems are compounded when there is a family business involved. The division of the spoils has traditionally been the subject of a great deal of argument, but recent cases have at least clarified the thinking of...
• Cohabitation Agreements - Protection for Unmarried Couples One of the most common myths in English law is that there is such a thing as a ‘common law marriage’. It simply doesn’t exist and this misapprehension has led the Law Commission to suggest proposals giving additional rights to cohabiting...