Financial Issues Guide From Family Expert

On divorce there will be financial issues to address and resolve. There are various ways in which a financial settlement can be agreed, this may include the parties attending mediation which is a voluntary process. The parties will have various meetings with a mediator to try to reach an agreement. The agreement details can then be sent to your solicitor to draft the agreement into a Court Order which will be submitted to the Court for approval.

Another approach is for your solicitor to negotiate a settlement on your behalf.

The first stage in this process is entering into Voluntary Financial Disclosure.

This is where both parties collate all their financial information with documents in support and exchange these with the other side. Both parties can then ask for further information or additional documentation as maybe required. Sometimes it is necessary to have assets valued and an expert such as a surveyor may be needed to value a property or you may need an accountant to value a family business.

Once disclosure is complete the parties can negotiate on the settlement terms. Once agreement is reached the details will be embodied in a Financial Consent Order and submitted to the Court for approval. Once approved by the Court it is binding and the terms can then be implemented.

In certain situations agreement cannot be reached or one party may not cooperate with the disclosure stage and in these circumstances an application to the Court will be made for the Court to deal with the financial issues. The Court will set out a timetable for the issues to be addressed and the first step will be disclosure of financial information. If matters are not agreed during the process a Judge will ultimately decide what the financial settlement terms will be.

There is no specific calculation that is used to decide division of financial assets and each case is looked at individually and the Court will take various factors into considerations such as:

• Financial needs and obligations
• Income and earning capacity
• Length of marriage
• Age of the parties
• Financial and other contributions to the marriage
• Disability

The above list is not exhaustive but the first consideration will always be the welfare of any children of the family.