Some recent, and surprising, court decisions from offshore jurisdictions, namely Bermuda and Jersey, demonstrate the fluctuating levels of cooperation that the English family courts can expect to receive in divorce cases.

In English divorces when there are offshore assets, often held in offshore trusts, it is common for wives to meet with resistance when they try to find out information about those assets or trusts from their husband.

One way of remedying this is by issuing Letters of Request. These are letters from an English court to the appropriate authority (usually a court) in the other jurisdiction requesting information about the assets or trusts held in that country. The letter is written by your solicitors, who then apply to the English court for its approval and to request that it is sent. The English court can, and frequently does, amend the content of the letter.

After receiving the letter the authority in that other jurisdiction can choose to do three things: Continue reading »

Robin Charrot writes: Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements have been in and out of the news over the past year. Here at Stowe Family Law, the number of new enquiries about prenups and postnups has risen sharply. The same questions come up often: is such an agreement advisable, and what can be done to ensure that it is effective?

This was the subject of my talk on Thursday evening, when Stowe Family Law and Lane-Smith & Shindler, a firm of specialist trusts and estates practitioners based in central Manchester, held a joint seminar (above) at the Marriott Hotel in Hale Barns. The audience comprised of retail and private banks, accountants, investment managers and IFAs.

Speakers from both firms discussed the impact of relationship breakdown on family wealth, and advised on steps to protect family wealth. Marilyn Stowe spoke about the changes in ancillary relief law over the last 10 years, which have led to far larger payouts to spouses in big money cases. Geoffrey Shindler of Lane-Smith & Shindler explored the impact of this change in the law on family trusts, and described how trusts could be vulnerable to different forms of attack from spouses. Paul Davies of Lane-Smith & Shindler explained how different drafting techniques can be used to provide added protection to trusts.

I chose to speak about the rise of prenuptial and postnuptial agreements to their current status, and described the mechanics by which the agreements are constructed. At the time of writing, such agreements are extremely influential on decisions made by our family courts in England and Wales.

Because of the level of interest in this talk, and the question and answers that followed, we are reprinting the accompanying handout here. If you are considering a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement, we hope that this information is useful. This is an area in which Stowe Family Law specialises, so you can always leave a comment or contact us directly with any additional queries. Continue reading »

I have noticed that many new visitors arrive at this blog after entering questions about their predicaments into Google. I asked Cheshire divorce lawyer Robin Charrot if he could help out with some answers.

For most court hearings, you will not play a speaking role. However there are still a few rules to follow. Use common sense: don’t lose your temper, don’t glare at your spouse and don’t sigh, tut or mutter when your spouse’s lawyer is speaking. Pay attention to what is being said. To get your lawyer’s attention, write a short note and tap them on the shoulder. But please don’t do this every five minutes! For further tips see Marilyn Stowe’s post, How To Act In Court.

how to explain to children adultery divorce

However much you blame your spouse for having an affair, resist telling your children “the simple truth”. This will always do more harm than good, because it will give them hopelessly conflicted loyalties. Your children have the right to have the best possible relationship with both their parents. Tell the children that their mum and dad are going to be happier living in different homes. Avoid the emphasis on your spouse’s new partner. In turn, your spouse should not bring his or her new partner onto the scene until the children are used to their parents living apart. Even then it should be done gradually.

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Not the usual kind of question asked of a family lawyer! Continue reading »

divorce cheshire

We opened our family law office in Cheshire just over a year ago. How time flies! Our Hale team is now eight-strong. We field divorce enquiries from across the North West region and take on new family law cases in Cheshire, Manchester and beyond.  Despite the challenging financial climate, our newest office has been busy from the word go.

Stowe Family Law celebrated the office’s first anniversary with a birthday drinks event, which was attended by the Mayor and Mayoress of Trafford, along with local business leaders.

It is an exciting time for our firm, with plenty of dynamic developments in the pipeline, and I am confident that our Hale office will continue to achieve fabulous results for our North West clients.

Now that Brian Myerson’s economic circumstances are transformed, he has tried, and failed, to overturn his original financial agreement.

Robin Charrot writes: Ingrid and Brian Myerson have recently hit the headlines. Brian Myerson is a fund manager who – needless to say – is going through tough times. His former wife Ingrid is a sculptor. Their divorce is at the head of a queue of cases and financial deals completed on the cusp of the world’s financial meltdown, when people like Mr Myerson were still seen as “masters of the universe”. His economic circumstances have since transformed and he wanted to unravel the original deal.

When the deal was agreed, Brian was doing quite well, having accrued assets in the region of £26m. The value of his shares in the company which he ran amounted to £15m. It is not reported what his annual income was, but I would wager that it was more than £1m a year.

Brian and Ingrid were married for 26 years. It was therefore a lengthy marriage, and Ingrid almost certainly had a claim to half of the assets. She may also have had a claim to a substantial part of Bryin’s annual income. I suspect that Ingrid sought financial security, and that Brian expected that his company would continue to make considerable amounts of money. Perhaps he did not like the prospect of having to pay out a significant percentage of his future income to Ingrid.

Capitalisation of maintenance

So this is what they did. Brian handed over to Ingrid the couple’s London home and a property in South Africa. He agreed to hand over a second property in South Africa (but hasn’t done so yet), and also agreed to pay her a lump sum of £9.5m cash, in instalments, over four years. He has already paid £7m of this, so £2.5m remains owing. Brian kept all of the shares in his company. In short, the wife received 47% of the assets and the husband kept 53% of the assets. As part of the deal, Ingrid also agreed to terminate her maintenance claims against Brian; this process is known as ‘capitalisation of maintenance‘.

This must have seemed like a pretty good deal for Brian Myerson at the time: he was left with the riskier assets but his wife kept fewer than 50% of the overall assets and he was poised to keep all of his future income.

What has happened since?

Continue reading »