Lydia Davis

We acted for a client at the end of a very long marriage, in which the parties had adult, independent children and had lived separate lives for many years, despite both remaining in the family home. They jointly owned both their UK property and a property abroad, of lower value.

We assisted our client in preparing disclosure of a significant volume of financial information and in negotiations with his former spouse. The parties settled their finances by consent at a hearing held privately, away from court, with a barrister acting as the judge for the purposes of assisting the parties to negotiate a settlement.

The outcome reached enabled one party to retain the family home and the other to retain the overseas property, together with sufficient funds to buy a small property in the UK. This required both of the parties to compromise and make new financial arrangements but achieved both parties’ key aims and an outcome they were both satisfied with.

We acted for a client who had been divorced for a few years. Arrangements for the family’s children had been agreed between her and her former husband informally on their separation and both parties had been abiding by the agreement. However, the former spouse was requesting a significant change to the contact arrangements, which our client did not agree with on the basis that she did not believe it was in the best interests of their children and was against their expressed wishes.

We initially sought to reach agreement with our client’s former spouse but this did not prove possible and we made a court application, which referred to our client’s concerns about her ex partner’s behaviour and sought to have the children’s wishes and feelings heard and taken into account.

The court proceedings, once up and running, quickly reached a conclusion when the parties agreed a schedule for contact that was child-focussed and to both parent’s satisfaction.