Kelsey Payne

Hopefully you are in a position to make an amicable and fair settlement that you mutually agree upon.  I advise that you are both fully aware of your rights and entitlements before you reach an agreement, and I would also advise you  take time to think about the actual consequences of your agreement.

Whether things are amicable or not, it’s important to note that life is complicated and although initially you may think you can come up with a quick number to satisfy both parties, with some reflection and recalculation it may transpire that one of you is not being taken care of quite as fairly as it initally seemed.

Where no children are involved these days it is generally more straight forward as it is rare for a woman to give up her career to ‘look after’ her husband, although I guess there are still some cultures where this would be a standard practice.  In principal one would hope that an agreement could be reached without having to call in the solicitors. 

Fair is an interesting term isn’t it, what is fair? it’s so subjective.  If you cannot reach an agreement which you both agree is fair, than that term becomes redundant.  You then need to think solely in terms of legal rights.  Legal rights are often not fair at all.  There is a myth that women are very well looked after in Divorce settlements, but in my experience the only time that women are well looked after is if their Ex partner enables this to happen.  This often does occur, some men are very much more than fair when it comes to settlement and I congratulate them for their generosity and hope that they were not disadvantaged themselves by it.

To say that the law gives preferential treatment to women to the detriment of men is somewhat amusing to me.  Seriously does anyone actually believe that the most established boys club that there is disadvantages men to be nice to women? does that seem remotely feasable to anyone?  In my opinion the law tries to treat people fairly, there are precedents to refer to and rulings a plenty, but at no point did anyone say women will be given a bonus because they are women.  Mothers are often allocated a greater % in their settlement if they are the primary carer, but if you think about what mothers have to do and provide as primary carer , and take in to account  that effectively their settlement is shared with their children – you will soon conclude that they were not quite as generously provided for as you initially thought.

In some cases the Ex partner has his own view on what is fair.  He has decided that he is moving on, he has detached emotionally and he is focused on his future and what he needs to build the future he desires.  Sometimes he will already have a new partner by his side, she is also focused on her future and her desires.  Where does this leave you? In short what they want should not interest  you.  Focus on your rights and understand why they are your rights.

Know that all solicitors/lawyers were not created equal.  Ensure that you get a reputable family law solicitor if you can.  If you need to use legal aid so be it.  In either case, be prepared to do some research yourself.  You only have one chance to make this settlement, you dont want to find out you overlooked something critical that will have a long lasting impact on your quality of life, just because you didn’t do your homework. There are a couple of websites which will offer a little taste of legal advice but you won’t get anything terribly signficant this way.  Most solicitors will offer you the first 30 minutes free.