Family
Our family department in Tonbridge, Kent is renowned for its expertise and high-quality service, advising on all aspects of family law. We know when to negotiate and when to litigate to achieve the best outcome for our clients.
No-one wants to be involved willingly in a family dispute, but sometimes it can be unavoidable. We understand this and are here to offer advice and support during what we know is a very stressful time.
Family disputes come in many guises, and our experienced public law lawyers can provide advice and representation where necessary to try to resolve difficulties to keep the family together where appropriate.
Members of this department are accredited resolution specialists dealing with domestic violence, financial matters, children and emergency procedures. They can offer mediation and collaborative law and we are members of the Children Panel.
Children
Your children’s well-being is your greatest priority. You will not want to take any chances with their welfare. When their well-being is threatened by inappropriate requests for access to them, you need to get expert assistance to ensure your concerns are properly put forward.
We work with expert barristers to make sure you have all the necessary skills at your disposal in the event that the dispute gets to a full court hearing.
There are hoops that you are forced to jump through if you need to rely upon legal aid. The Government insists in most cases that legal aid will not be available unless some form of domestic abuse has occurred. The court system now likes to see parties try mediation before allowing any proceedings to progress.
Cohabitation
The problem with cohabiting with no marriage or formal agreement is that the law can appear to be very unfair if the relationship breaks up.
Similar problems arise on divorce in relation to children, income and assets but the complications are much greater with cohabitation as the law did not develop to regulate these relationships.
That does not mean that you are without help from the courts. The history of the relationship will always be important as well as the financial expectations of the parties when entering the relationship, what a partner gave up or supplied by way of assets, and what changes took place during the relationship. Many more factors may be relevant depending upon your particular arrangements.
Divorce
Nobody ever thinks their relationship will fail and that they will become one of the depressing statistics that chart the demise of relationship breakdown. When it does, the impact on the family is huge. In fact, it is viewed as one of the top three most traumatic life experiences that we ever have to suffer.
Our family team is committed to the resolution ethos of minimising conflict between couples and trying to negotiate a fair and reasonable settlement in the interests of the whole family.
When dealing with divorce, judicial separation, dissolution of a civil partnership or separation from a partner you have never married, there are a number of areas of law that may need to be considered, including children, pension provision, or any time-shares or businesses owned.
Our fees structure is highly competitive. Divorces begin at £150.00 plus VAT.
Finances
Our expert family lawyers can assist in resolving financial disputes in divorce and similar proceedings. It is very rare for the courts to award costs to either party. With that in mind, you may prefer to take an active role with us to help ensure that your costs are kept as low as possible but without impacting adversely upon the successful result in your favour.
If finances cannot be resolved sensibly by negotiation within a short period, then dealing with financial proceedings quickly and effectively can often bring the other party to the negotiating table in a more reasonable frame of mind. Pursuing correspondence and negotiations to reach a settlement can be a forlorn and expensive exercise.
It is important to recognise those cases that fall into this bracket, although we always hope that common sense will prevail in such matters.
Prenuptial Agreements
A ‘Prenup’ is an agreement made by a couple before they marry. It sets out how they would like their existing assets to be split if they divorce. A prenup is designed to control how claims on assets should be decided if the marriage ends.
There are many reasons why you may need a prenup. You may have substantial assets that you may want to protect in event of a divorce. You may want to safeguard assets for your children from an earlier marriage.
The courts have already decided to accept that decisive weight can be given to prenups.