As previously noted, many first-time visitors to this blog arrive here after typing their questions about divorce and family law directly into Google and other search engines. I also receive a number of reader enquiries via the comments section and the Contact Me page.

If you are a reader with a question about divorce and you would like a swift answer, join me on The Times website tomorrow (Thursday 29 July) for a Live Q&A during which I’ll be answering questions about all aspects of family law and finance.

If you prefer, you can submit your question in advance by adding it to the comments section on the website’s Live Q&A page. (The Times website is subscription-only, but can currently be accessed for £1 for 30 days.)

You can access the Live Q&A here. I will answer any question that you have, no matter how big or how small, so ask away!

UPDATE: it was a lively Q&A and you can view it here.

I was interested to read in The Times that a barristers’ chambers in London has set up a company that will arrange funding in divorce cases:

“Steve Jones, its business development manager, says: “It’s a way of reducing the balance between unequal parties where one has resources and one hasn’t — giving access to justice.”

“What is striking is that the set itself does not stand to gain directly from this venture. Divorce is not its area of expertise so it is referring the case to other specialist barristers and solicitors. It is acting as the middleman, or broker, arranging money with one of the 14 companies now providing what is called third-party litigation funding. “We don’t take a percentage or brokerage fee — we benefit in goodwill,” Michael Martin, the senior clerk, says. “Solicitors may refer cases on to us — it’s good old-fashioned rain-making.””

I believe that, contrary to what is stated, litigation funding is more generally available than is suggested in this article, at normal commercial rates from high street banks when clients need funding for their divorce. We don’t organise it; our clients do. However problems do arise with cases where the assets are very difficult to trace, or are offshore, or are in the husband’s name. Then banks are understandably reluctant to lend without security. In such cases a Sears Tooth Agreement may be appropriate. If not, and as a last resort, the husband may be ordered to pay out of his monthly income towards the wife’s costs. Continue reading »

JK Rowling makes a very sympathetic case in The Times for the plight of lone parent families living on benefits.  If she wasn’t known to be such a great friend and supporter of the Labour Party and the Browns, one might be wholly, instead of partially, convinced by her arguments. Yesterday I was invited by the Yorkshire Post, as one of 40 Yorkshire people, to meet Gordon Brown. The invitation came at very short notice so I couldn’t make it. I couldn’t turn my clients away, even for the Prime Minister! But had it been possible, this topic would have been on my agenda.

I have written before on a similar subject: the Every Family Matters report prepared for the Conservative Party last summer, by Iain Duncan Smith’s ‘Centre for Social Justice’ think tank. I have a client who is a prominent member of the Conservative Party and I was recently told that my views are well known to them. (This information was delivered with a disapproving look.) I came straight back with all my arguments. I intend to pose them again now, in the context of Ms Rowling’s commentary.

I believe in families: families of all types, single, married, divorcing, cohabiting. They all deserve consideration and recognition, rather than approbation. Every one of us belongs to a family, and none of us should ever feel entitled to criticise another family of whom we disapprove.

The one-parent family is a very sensitive, difficult topic. It often encompasses the concept of lone parenting itself and the poverty trap, together with the financial impact and the emotional fallout of children growing up without two parents living in the same home, with one parent struggling to provide all for the most part – and not always successfully. Continue reading »

Stowe Family Law’s International Family Law department is as busy as ever, and we have also seen a steady rise in the number of enquiries about prenuptial agreements. This, I believe, has been prompted – at least in part – by last year’s ruling in the Radmacher v Granatino case, which involved an agreement made between a German heiress and her banker husband.

David Charter, Europe Correspondent at The Times, contacted me to ask for thoughts on another landmark ruling in a German case. The story appears in today’s newspaper.

German ordered to repay house deposit to his in-laws after divorce

It is not just the grasping ex that Germans must contend with during a divorce. Now it is the in-laws as well.

Judges in Berlin yesterday ordered a man who kept the family home to pay back a gift of €29,000 (£25,000) from his in-laws that had helped the couple buy the house.

The ruling by the Federal Court of Justice has been interpreted as a landmark judgment which could allow in-laws to reclaim presents given to their child’s spouse if the marriage breaks down.

Judges said that the “contractual basis” of such presents depended on the in-laws’ child being able to enjoy the fruits of the gift. That basis no longer applied after a divorce.

“If the child benefits from the gift for a long period of time (for example if the couple lives together in a house donated by the in-laws), then only a part of the gift must be paid back,” the judges said in their ruling.  Continue reading»

I have already written about the Court of Appeal’s recent decision in the Marco Pierre White case. Divorce, Full Disclosure and Marco Pierre White looked at the Hildebrand Rules and at what can happen when clients take matters into their own hands. Hildebrand Documents and Marco Pierre White examined the judgment in detail. Frances Gibb, Legal Editor of The Times, contacted me about this significant ruling to ask about its implications for family law practitioners. The story appears on page three of today’s newspaper:

Marco Pierre White challenge could change divorce battles for ever

Take one celebrity chef, separate him from his wife, sprinkle with allegations of intercepted letters, simmer and serve with a landmark ruling.

Marco Pierre White, the former Michelin-starred chef and television presenter, is pursuing his estranged wife’s lawyers in a test case that could change for ever the way that divorce battles are fought. Family lawyers warn that the chef’s lawsuit could end the practice by spouses of turning detective to unearth evidence.

White recently won a landmark ruling that enables him to proceed against Withers, the City law firm that was acting for his estranged wife, Mati, over the interception and seizure of his personal papers. The action is expected to come to trial this year and has already prompted enquiries from clients who think that they may be able to lodge similar claims.

Lawyers say that any spouse who wants to do her own detective work because she suspects that her husband is lying about his finances will lose a crucial weapon if White wins the case. They are calling for urgent guidelines so that they and their clients know where they stand. Continue reading»

Stowe Family Law’s head of international family law, Frank Arndt, features in today’s Times Law ‘Water Cooler.’ His comments on proposals to reform EU divorce law highlight a pertinent issue for many of our clients – what to do when you divorce across borders.

From The Times:

Forum-shopping for the best European country for a divorce may become even more complex – with proposals just announced by the UK to harmonise the law affecting the 170,000 couples involved in cross-border EU divorces each year. New draft regulations would allow couples to choose the member state where they want to divorce, if they have other defined links with it, such as place of marriage, usual domicile, nationality or they were last resident there.

The proposal provides for both spouses to be informed of their rights to stop the choice of forum creating a disadvantage for the weaker member of a couple. The commission’s draft has run into opposition from Sweden; it needs unanimous approval to become EU law. At least nine countries (France, Italy, Spain, Romania, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia and Luxembourg) have agreed to use what is called “enhanced co-operation” on the issue, enabling them to go ahead on their own.

Frank Arndt, head of international family work at Stowe Family Law, said: “This is a split, not a harmonisation. Current EU law in this area is a dog’s dinner of contradictions, absurdities and injustices. The country in which divorce proceedings are filed is of huge significance . . . and can have a dramatic bearing on the eventual settlement.”

To read the full ‘Water Cooler’, click here.

I was interviewed for a feature in The Times, which was published on Saturday 3 November:

Divorce rates are falling – except for people over 60. What is the fallout when Granny and Grandpa split up, asks Celia Dodd

Nowadays, few people raise an eyebrow at the news that another young friend or relative is heading for the divorce courts. But what happens when couples divorce later in life? What makes couples who have rubbed along together for decades mess with the status quo so late in the day? The unpalatable stereotype of the grey-haired man trading in his wife for a younger model undoubtedly still exists, but there is a new desire around for fulfilment in later life, and women in particular have the get-up-and-go as well as the economic freedom to do something about it. Could we be entering the age of the silver divorce?

The latest set of statistics show a continued rise in divorce among the over60s age group; a trend that started in 1998. This is in marked contrast to the 22-year low in annual divorce numbers for the rest of the population. Divorce among the Saga generation may be on the rise because people in their fifties and sixties are looking forward to a longer and healthier retirement than their parents, and feel less inclined to settle for second best.

The emotional fallout when older couples separate has a knock-on effect down the generations: it divides loyalties and even splits families. For the person who has been abandoned, it’s a bitter blow at the cruellest time of life, when all the props that help younger couples to get through have taken a back seat.

“Divorce is almost worse than bereavement“

A leading divorce lawyer Marilyn Stowe, of Stowe Family Law, says: “With older clients divorce is almost worse than a bereavement because your spouse of 30-odd years is still around, enjoying retirement, but not with you. Adult children almost invariably side with the person who has been deserted, and the grandchildren will follow their parents and, as a result, the relationship between grandchild and grandparent can be ruptured.

“I think there is an increased possibility of hostility when the children are grown-up because it’s easy for them to make black-and-white moral judgments. And I think the idea that their inheritance might go to a stranger is at the back of some adult children’s minds.”

Continue reading »