Legal Separation

Married couples quite often decide to separate before they divorce. This can lead to difficulties with regards to finances and any children. Who pays the household bills, lives in the matrimonial property, deals with assets and finances generally, and makes day-to-day decisions regarding the children. All these issues are areas for potential friction between the parties.

To reduce the areas of conflict both parties can enter into a separation agreement.

Separation Agreement

An agreement may include the following-:

• how income and expenditure will be apportioned

 

• who will live in the matrimonial home

 

• whether the home, or any other assets, are to be sold

 

• what arrangements have been made for any children

 

Each side will make full financial disclosure to the other. Discussions will take place and hopefully an agreement can be reached.

Whilst any agreement is not strictly legally enforceable a Court can decide whether an agreement was in place and whether it has been broken by either side.

A separation agreement can be extremely useful in smoothing the path for a future divorce and in fact if it has worked for a period of over two years it can form the basis of a Consent Order within the divorce process.

Separation agreements can also be utilised in Civil Partnerships where additional issues may need to be considered.

 

For advice relating to separation agreements please contact Clare Ellison (clareellison@hhlegal.co.uk) or Sinead Connolly (sineadconnolly@hhlegal.co.uk) on 0800 371 407.