Blog
What is your duty to co-operate with your regulator?
Zoe Beels
30 March 2011
Matter of Trust
The question of whether assets held in trust should be counted as matrimonial assets has come to the fore again with reports in the press that Athelstan Whaley is appealing against the Judgment that he must pay his wife, Belinda, £3.75m. The basis of his appeal appears to be that the total matrimonial assets are actually approximately £4m, not the £10m the Court found by including trust assets.
23 February 2011
Mediation changes afoot…
Following our blog on 14 October, the Justice Minister has announced new rules (effective from 6 April) making mediation compulsory before most family law proceedings can be issued at Court. A new practice direction requires couples to have at least one mediation awareness session, to find out what the mediation process involves and whether they want to sign up to it. The Justice Minister is hoping that more cases will be resolved through mediation, avoiding the stress and cost of contested Court proceedings, saying “Mediation is proven to be a quicker, cheaper and more amicable alternative, particularly where children are concerned”.
17 February 2011
Marriage in all but name?
The equalities minister is expected to announce plans this week to give gay men and women the same rights to marry as heterosexual couples. It has been reported that same sex couples will be able to hold traditional wedding ceremonies in register offices and civil wedding venues. Religious groups will be able to decide whether to hold gay weddings, although the Church of England is unlikely to allow its churches to be used. The antiquated Marriage Act is to be updated and the legal definition of marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman is also to be changed.
8 February 2011
What's mine is yours...depending on what it is and when I got it.
In the recent case of JvJ, the Court of Appeal gave guidance on the treatment of non matrimonial assets, which in this case was a company that the Husband had acquired and operated for 10 years before the marriage. The Wife accepted that she should have a lower than 50% share of the total assets and the Husband accepted the Wife should have an equal share of the matrimonial assets.
13 January 2011
International Surrogacy: not just for celebrities?
The debate surrounding Surrogacy is likely to be one of the hot topics of 2011, following the announcement that Elton John and David Furnish became parents (on Christmas day 2010) to Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John, who was born to a surrogate mother in the US. Since 28 December, the UK press has been jam packed with articles debating the morality of gay surrogacy and the changing face of the traditional “nuclear family”.
- Children
- Civil Partnerships & Co-habitation
- Divorce & Separation
- Financial Settlements
- International Adoption & Surrogacy
- International Family Law
- Mediation & Alternatives to Litigation
- Pre-nuptial & Post-nuptial Agreements
- Anglo French Family Law
- Legal Updates
- Reflections on The Split
- Child Relocation after Divorce or Separation