Divorce - recommendations for Lawyer?

[Shadowy_me]

My wife wants a divorce due to finding out lots of things: Alcohol, women etc... I'm not proud and sorting them out so they are not a problem going forwards.

She is going for 75% of the assets, as the marriage is long (20 years) and she didn't work very much. I will probably not contest this.

Can anyone recommend a lawyer?

Thanks,

[Pegscratch]

An absence of one if you plan not to contest 75% and she sticks to it. All having a lawyer will do it take money from you both.

Use anyone local to ensure final agreements are indeed final. Good (and invariably expensive ones) are unnecessary unless it gets messy.

[NGee]

Why is it not 50/50?

If you are prepared to be ripped off by your wife why do you even need a lawyer?

[bunchofkeys]

I can recommend BDB Pitmans, speak to Matt Heyworth or Alice Balcombe (Associate)

Currently using him and his team now, and they blow the socks of previous interactions I've had with legal assistance, in the past.

[Shadowy_me]

NGee said:

Why is it not 50/50?

If you are prepared to be ripped off by your wife why do you even need a lawyer?

Well, all of those things she deserves it

[Cold]

Will a judge automatically sanction a 75/25 division if there's no financial requirements* for it to happen?

*Young children etc excepted

[agtlaw]

I can recommend someone in Berkshire. If that's helpful then email for info.

[martinbiz]

Shadowy_me said:

My wife wants a divorce due to finding out lots of things: Alcohol, women etc... I'm not proud and sorting them out so they are not a problem going forwards.

She is going for 75% of the assets, as the marriage is long (20 years) and she didn't work very much. I will probably not contest this.

Can anyone recommend a lawyer?

Thanks,

Sorry but why would you roll over for just 25%, I cannot think why a 50/50 split would not be the way to go (assuming no children as you haven't mentioned any)

I came away with 20% allbeit a few years ago and there were 2 young children involved. I am not suggesting you instruct a solicitor, but I would certainly take some advice as to what you should be entitled to

Have you asked your ex why she thinks a 75/25 split is appropriate? If it's because of your straying and unreasonable behaviour, that would not matter, fault should have no effect on Division of assets

[GT03ROB]

agtlaw said:

I can recommend someone in Berkshire. If that's helpful then email for info.

I think he's supposed to be very good assuming we are thinking same guy.......

OP... you probably feel st & guilty right now hence why you want to settle as you do, but really look ahead a few years & see where you will be. Get a solicitor on board they can at least get you thinking straight & help you understand what is considered fair in the eyes of the law. If you still want to give her 75% fair enough but make that decision having had good counsel & thought it through fully

[KevinCamaroSS]

martinbiz said:

Sorry but why would you roll over for just 25%, I cannot think why a 50/50 split would not be the way to go (assuming no children as you haven't mentioned any)

I came away with 20% allbeit a few years ago and there were 2 young children involved. I am not suggesting you instruct a solicitor, but I would certainly take some advice as to what you should be entitled to

Have you asked your ex why she thinks a 75/25 split is appropriate? If it's because of your straying and unreasonable behaviour, that would not matter, fault should have no effect on Division of assets

This.

You have a lot of remorse at the moment, but, you will need to get on with your life after the event. At some point you will regret being over-generous when divorcing. Don't ask me how I know.

[Seesure]

Might useful to know which part of the country...

I found it useful to be able to go see my solicitor, also having some one reasonably localish meant expenses weren't over the top when we had to go to court (and we ended up going a few times...) Plus it meant they were able to engage a local barrister, again, helping keeping travel costs down...

[Algarve]

KevinCamaroSS said:

This.

You have a lot of remorse at the moment, but, you will need to get on with your life after the event. At some point you will regret being over-generous when divorcing. Don't ask me how I know.

She'll need to get on with hers too.

If they both made a joint agreement he'd work and she'd look after the house its not very fair to split up 20 years later and he continues in a £100k a year job and she goes to stack shelves on nightshifts in Tesco, is it? If that was the case she's going to need more than 50% to compensate for a massive disparity in earning power ongoing.

[Jag_NE]

martinbiz said:

Shadowy_me said:

My wife wants a divorce due to finding out lots of things: Alcohol, women etc... I'm not proud and sorting them out so they are not a problem going forwards.

She is going for 75% of the assets, as the marriage is long (20 years) and she didn't work very much. I will probably not contest this.

Can anyone recommend a lawyer?

Thanks,

Sorry but why would you roll over for just 25%, I cannot think why a 50/50 split would not be the way to go (assuming no children as you haven't mentioned any)

I came away with 20% allbeit a few years ago and there were 2 young children involved. I am not suggesting you instruct a solicitor, but I would certainly take some advice as to what you should be entitled to

Have you asked your ex why she thinks a 75/25 split is appropriate? If it's because of your straying and unreasonable behaviour, that would not matter, fault should have no effect on Division of assets

I read that as he has done the dirty, has a career, she doesn't, and he is doing the honorable thing by giving her 75% as she doesn't have the means to earn a lot going forwards. If it is as simple as that id say 50-50 is unfair.

[Shadowy_me]

Jag_NE said:

martinbiz said:

Shadowy_me said:

My wife wants a divorce due to finding out lots of things: Alcohol, women etc... I'm not proud and sorting them out so they are not a problem going forwards.

She is going for 75% of the assets, as the marriage is long (20 years) and she didn't work very much. I will probably not contest this.

Can anyone recommend a lawyer?

Thanks,

Sorry but why would you roll over for just 25%, I cannot think why a 50/50 split would not be the way to go (assuming no children as you haven't mentioned any)

I came away with 20% allbeit a few years ago and there were 2 young children involved. I am not suggesting you instruct a solicitor, but I would certainly take some advice as to what you should be entitled to

Have you asked your ex why she thinks a 75/25 split is appropriate? If it's because of your straying and unreasonable behaviour, that would not matter, fault should have no effect on Division of assets

I read that as he has done the dirty, has a career, she doesn't, and he is doing the honorable thing by giving her 75% as she doesn't have the means to earn a lot going forwards. If it is as simple as that id say 50-50 is unfair.

Yes, sadly that is accurate. Unfortunately I'm old (51), and have not much time to make it up.

Edited by Shadowy_me on Thursday 25th June 23:27

[SeeFive]

Shadowy_me said:

Jag_NE said:

martinbiz said:

Shadowy_me said:

My wife wants a divorce due to finding out lots of things: Alcohol, women etc... I'm not proud and sorting them out so they are not a problem going forwards.

She is going for 75% of the assets, as the marriage is long (20 years) and she didn't work very much. I will probably not contest this.

Can anyone recommend a lawyer?

Thanks,

Sorry but why would you roll over for just 25%, I cannot think why a 50/50 split would not be the way to go (assuming no children as you haven't mentioned any)

I came away with 20% allbeit a few years ago and there were 2 young children involved. I am not suggesting you instruct a solicitor, but I would certainly take some advice as to what you should be entitled to

Have you asked your ex why she thinks a 75/25 split is appropriate? If it's because of your straying and unreasonable behaviour, that would not matter, fault should have no effect on Division of assets

I read that as he has done the dirty, has a career, she doesn't, and he is doing the honorable thing by giving her 75% as she doesn't have the means to earn a lot going forwards. If it is as simple as that id say 50-50 is unfair.

Yes, sadly that is accurate. Unfortunately I'm old (51), and have not much time to make it up.

Edited by Shadowy_me on Thursday 25th June 23:27

My thread has arrived! You are so going to wish you had kept it in your pants. The good news is that the courts are not interested in who is to blame when rattling out the financial settlement. However, there is a lot of other bad news depending on what your ex does.

I hope her pension provision is a similar size to yours. If she gets a lawyer involved, there will be a pension sharing order and unless hers is the same as yours, it is gonna seriously cost you.

My divorce cost me around half a million quid in hard cash from house which while we lived there, I paid for In the ratio of 5:1 monthly and continued to do so through the divorce period running up massive debts while supporting her in my old house and paying for my rented life for 5 years. This debt swallowed a lot of my equity when it arrived from the eventual sale of the house, none of which was taken into account by the legal process. So I lost even more by having to run 2 homes for years, she has a better property than me as she had a lot less expense over the years it was dragged out.

Between her and I, we spent well over 40k on lawyers and mediation as my ex was a greedy bh. No kids, 11 years married, starting point from my other half was 100% to her. After I stopped laughing, 5 years later we ended up at 58/42 in her favour, which I dreamed up in mediation based on her needs and her earning potential working backwards from a suitable house price. Everything else except my personal possessions went to her, and she even sold some of those.

But the big one, she also took half my pension which I had built up for considerably longer than I had known her - like 30 years longer. Solicitors were useless at defending that, “Oh that pension can’t be shared” said my lawyer, and it was written into the court order - like hell it couldn’t and it cost me a further (Negotiated from 40k) 12k cash and 5k legal to get that fixed later on when a separate erroneous CTV materialised 40k light after the court had settled and she reopened the case.

Mediation wasn’t much cheaper than lawyers. But at least we were all in the same room with a whiteboard and achieved an outcome in a couple of months that the lawyers couldn’t achieve at all, just spent time pawing through documents, research and figures, corresponding between each other pointlessly but highly profitably.

My £450+++ quid an hour lawyers were useless in the end, but were very positive all the way up to just before they decided that they couldn’t get agreement and mediation was necessary. Up till then, apparently “her side did t have a leg to stand on and we will get an agreement”. But of course, they already had my money by then. My lawyer was also recommended on PH, if the name crops up I will PM you.

My advice, keep as far away from the lawyers as possible. Work it out together and get it drawn up legally and ratified by the court. Split the extra 40k you will spend on useless legal wasters between you. At the start after seeing the position on the forms provided, my lawyer estimated that “Depending where this goes” it would cost between 2 and 12k. Quite rangey I thought, even my local garage can do better than a 600% margin of error when estimating, but hey ho, maybe they can save me a few percent and possibly influence where “it goes”. Truth told, they influenced nothing and saved me absolutely nothing.

My Illegal advice. Have her shot it is miles cheaper. (In my case, I am almost fking serious about that if it wasn’t illegal).

But here is the nub. Lawyered up or not, the law is going to be against you especially if you are a disproportionally big earner right now with a disproportionally big pension. Get a job at McDonalds immediately and have next to no income rather than hire a lawyer, it will turn out better. Go back to your highly paid job after the court finishes screwing you. Reason? In my case it didn’t matter whether your huge earning potential is likely to reduce with rapidly advancing age, or if hers will increase if the lazy cow decides to do more than 3 days work a week, it will all be based around HER NEEDS and your financial status on that day to provide for it as the papers are submitted to court. Family lawyers seem to be powerless to do anything about it, but quite happily convince you they can as they ramp up the bills month on month. By the way, I am not sure if suddenly reducing your salary will work either, although nobody blinked when my exes suddenly reduced by 25% !!

I got so pissed off with the lack of progress, I ended up drawing the solution on a whiteboard in a mediation session and the lawyers simply wrote it up from the mediator notes and the court agreed it. By that stage, with the spiralling costs and time wasted, even she was getting worn down and we just both wanted an end to it. Before that the lawyers just wasted time and money it would appear, and both sides actually provided incorrect advice on a number of occasions which caused me even more time and money to straighten out long after the lawyers had spent our fees.

footnote: the above circumstances may bear some resemblance to the last 6 years of my life, and yes, I am fking bitter at the cost of legal services for absolutely no gain and I am even older than you and in a young guys role which is likely to fizzle out any moment.

The only advice that I suggest above which should be taken seriously is try to do it without lawyers. If you have to go legal to get an agreement, go down the mediation route where you, the mediator and her are all in the same room. That might just keep the numbers and costs reasonable, but if you can agree it between the two of you, then that is even better.

Edited by SeeFive on Friday 26th June 04:00

[spookly]

SeeFive said:

My thread has arrived! You are so going to wish you had kept it in your pants. The good news is that the courts are not interested in who is to blame when rattling out the financial settlement. However, there is a lot of other bad news depending on what your ex does.

I hope her pension provision is a similar size to yours. If she gets a lawyer involved, there will be a pension sharing order and unless hers is the same as yours, it is gonna seriously cost you.

My divorce cost me around half a million quid in hard cash from house which while we lived there, I paid for In the ratio of 5:1 monthly and continued to do so through the divorce period running up massive debts while supporting her in my old house and paying for my rented life for 5 years. This debt swallowed a lot of my equity when it arrived from the eventual sale of the house, none of which was taken into account by the legal process. So I lost even more by having to run 2 homes for years, she has a better property than me as she had a lot less expense over the years it was dragged out.

Between her and I, we spent well over 40k on lawyers and mediation as my ex was a greedy bh. No kids, 11 years married, starting point from my other half was 100% to her. After I stopped laughing, 5 years later we ended up at 58/42 in her favour, which I dreamed up in mediation based on her needs and her earning potential working backwards from a suitable house price. Everything else except my personal possessions went to her, and she even sold some of those.

But the big one, she also took half my pension which I had built up for considerably longer than I had known her - like 30 years longer. Solicitors were useless at defending that, “Oh that pension can’t be shared” said my lawyer, and it was written into the court order - like hell it couldn’t and it cost me a further (Negotiated from 40k) 12k cash and 5k legal to get that fixed later on when a separate erroneous CTV materialised 40k light after the court had settled and she reopened the case.

Mediation wasn’t much cheaper than lawyers. But at least we were all in the same room with a whiteboard and achieved an outcome in a couple of months that the lawyers couldn’t achieve at all, just spent time pawing through documents, research and figures, corresponding between each other pointlessly but highly profitably.

My £450+++ quid an hour lawyers were useless in the end, but were very positive all the way up to just before they decided that they couldn’t get agreement and mediation was necessary. Up till then, apparently “her side did t have a leg to stand on and we will get an agreement”. But of course, they already had my money by then. My lawyer was also recommended on PH, if the name crops up I will PM you.

My advice, keep as far away from the lawyers as possible. Work it out together and get it drawn up legally and ratified by the court. Split the extra 40k you will spend on useless legal wasters between you. At the start after seeing the position on the forms provided, my lawyer estimated that “Depending where this goes” it would cost between 2 and 12k. Quite rangey I thought, even my local garage can do better than a 600% margin of error when estimating, but hey ho, maybe they can save me a few percent and possibly influence where “it goes”. Truth told, they influenced nothing and saved me absolutely nothing.

My Illegal advice. Have her shot it is miles cheaper. (In my case, I am almost fking serious about that if it wasn’t illegal).

But here is the nub. Lawyered up or not, the law is going to be against you especially if you are a disproportionally big earner right now with a disproportionally big pension. Get a job at McDonalds immediately and have next to no income rather than hire a lawyer, it will turn out better. Go back to your highly paid job after the court finishes screwing you. Reason? In my case it didn’t matter whether your huge earning potential is likely to reduce with rapidly advancing age, or if hers will increase if the lazy cow decides to do more than 3 days work a week, it will all be based around HER NEEDS and your financial status on that day to provide for it as the papers are submitted to court. Family lawyers seem to be powerless to do anything about it, but quite happily convince you they can as they ramp up the bills month on month. By the way, I am not sure if suddenly reducing your salary will work either, although nobody blinked when my exes suddenly reduced by 25% !!

I got so pissed off with the lack of progress, I ended up drawing the solution on a whiteboard in a mediation session and the lawyers simply wrote it up from the mediator notes and the court agreed it. By that stage, with the spiralling costs and time wasted, even she was getting worn down and we just both wanted an end to it. Before that the lawyers just wasted time and money it would appear, and both sides actually provided incorrect advice on a number of occasions which caused me even more time and money to straighten out long after the lawyers had spent our fees.

footnote: the above circumstances may bear some resemblance to the last 6 years of my life, and yes, I am fking bitter at the cost of legal services for absolutely no gain and I am even older than you and in a young guys role which is likely to fizzle out any moment.

The only advice that I suggest above which should be taken seriously is try to do it without lawyers. If you have to go legal to get an agreement, go down the mediation route where you, the mediator and her are all in the same room. That might just keep the numbers and costs reasonable, but if you can agree it between the two of you, then that is even better.

Edited by SeeFive on Friday 26th June 04:00

The trick is to get made redundant only a couple of weeks before the financial hearing and then not get another job until its finalised. The ex wife's barrister even tried to accuse me of doing it deliberately, but the judge shut her down. I now still have the family home, just had to pay the ex a small %. I kept more than 1/2 of my pensions. And the best bit was that I walked away with a clean break order and pay no maintenance, and the clean break order also allows me to leave the country with the children on a permanent basis for work if I choose.

[Amateurish]

Shadowy_me said:

My wife wants a divorce due to finding out lots of things: Alcohol, women etc... I'm not proud and sorting them out so they are not a problem going forwards.

She is going for 75% of the assets, as the marriage is long (20 years) and she didn't work very much. I will probably not contest this.

Can anyone recommend a lawyer?

Thanks,

Where in the country are you?

Bear in mind that conduct during the marriage has no impact on the financial split. Don't come to any agreement until you have spoken to a solicitor, especially if you are feeling "guilty" about your behaviour.

[Shadowy_me]

Amateurish said:

Where in the country are you?

Bear in mind that conduct during the marriage has no impact on the financial split. Don't come to any agreement until you have spoken to a solicitor, especially if you are feeling "guilty" about your behaviour.

I'm in East Sussex. The latest idea is to get a 'post nuptial' that follows the 75% and then see where it goes. We are not currently living together. I'm suffering from depression and will just sign anything.

[hyphen]

Shadowy_me said:

I'm in East Sussex. The latest idea is to get a 'post nuptial' that follows the 75% and then see where it goes. We are not currently living together. I'm suffering from depression and will just sign anything.

You definitely need a lawyer.

[oblio]

hyphen said:

Shadowy_me said:

I'm in East Sussex. The latest idea is to get a 'post nuptial' that follows the 75% and then see where it goes. We are not currently living together. I'm suffering from depression and will just sign anything.

You definitely need a lawyer.

I'd agree with that (having been through a divorce myself) especially given your health. The divorce can get quite emotional and a good solicitor should present you with unemotional, reasonable views on the situation. Mine helped me see the big picture rather than get het up about details.

Good luck.