Family Procedure Rules Came into effect on 6 April 2011 Some familiar phrases will be consigned to history, with the most notable changes being: ‘Ancillary relief’ becomes ‘financial order’; Divorce proceedings become ‘matrimonial proceedings’ A petition will simply become an ‘application’ Costs The presumption that each party pay their own costs is excluded from applications for maintenance pending suit/interim periodical payments. This should therefore mean that the losing party in such applications will be facing the risk of cost order. Applications to vary maintenance pending suit/interim periodical payments orders are not included within this exception. Mediation. Apart from certain exceptions,…
A man escaped a driving ban after being caught speeding to his critically ill son’s bedside has received no fine and no points after being clocked at 128mph. Lloyd Ansermoz was relaxing at home on a warm summer evening when the phone rang. It was the call every parent dreads: his son had collapsed and was to be rushed to hospital in a critical condition. Ansermoz left his home in Runcorn, Cheshire, jumped into his Mercedes and sped off towards a hospital in Sutton Coldfield, 60-odd miles away in the West Midlands. He would say later that he knew he…
A Court of Appeal case has made it easier for a business owner to ring fence business assets, or either spouse to ring fence inherited assets. The starting point in divorce settlements is 50/50, but this is not the finishing point. Mr Jones, who started work at the age of 15 as a marine engineering apprentice, built a career in the North Sea oil and gas industry and now lives in a castle near Aberdeen. Before the couple were married, he spent 10 years expanding a specialist gases business supplying the oil industry. At the time of their divorce proceedings…
Click here to read the full article about the divorce of Katie Price and Alex Reid. Leading London lawyer Rodney Hylton-Potts told new that Alex should expect a chunk of Jordan’s earnings. “In all divorces, the starting point is 50:50,” he said. “But that doesn’t always apply in shorter marriages, as we saw with Heather Mills -who got half what Paul McCartney earned during the four years they were together. “There’s money from magazine and TV deals, which arose because Katie met Alex. With a good lawyer, he’ll get half her net earnings after tax for the entire period they…
The Bribery Act could make it illegal to wine and dine a client at Wimbledon. No one can say for sure what will and will not be allowed Wimbledon hospitality tents may be quieter. There are 150 executive boxes at Twickenham, the home of English rugby, packed out on match days Fuelled by a roast lunch and champagne, their occupants will cheer on Martin Johnson. It could be a different story in future. New Laws could make corporate hospitality an offence. Flying in guests from overseas to the rugby or the tennis at Wimbledon might be construed as bribery. The…
The default retirement age (DRA) will be consigned to history from October 2011. Employers will no longer be able to require people to stop working at 65, purely because of their age. Employers should think of having a much older retirement age – 70 or 75. Employers would no longer be able to issue compulsory retirement notifications under the DRA procedure from 6 April 2011. Between 6 April and 1 October this year only people who were notified before the April cut-off date can be compulsory retired. From 1 October 2011 employers will only be able to operate a compulsory…
Couples who break up following a live-in relationship are paying tens of thousands of pounds in settlements to their former partners. A new phenomenon of ‘break-up payments’ is increasingly common because more and more couples are living together for several years without marrying. When a marriage collapses, a spouse is usually entitled to half the couple’s assets, but for cohabitees the legalities can be a minefield. Some people were willing to pay up to £100,000 to former partners to avoid lengthy legal action which can last up to 18 months, it said. Recent actions have involved custody of children, jointly…
The Department for Work and Pensions cannot recover welfare benefit payments through the courts where the claimant is not at fault, the Supreme Court has ruled. Between March 2006 and February 2007 the DWP wrote to over 65,000 claimants telling them it could sue them, if they did not return overpayments made as a result of administrative errors. The benefits involved included income support, incapacity benefit, disability living allowance, jobseekers’ allowance and child benefit. In The Child Poverty Action Group v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2010] UKSC 54, the judges said it was common ground that the…
The arrest of expat WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for alleged sex offences has highlighted aspects of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) agreement which enable all EU member states to extradite defendants without producing any evidence in support of the charge. Born in Queensland, Australia, Mr Assange is very much an expat. Having moved 37 times by the time he was 14, and many more times subsequently, he is almost a global citizen – a condition occasionally favoured by wealthy expats who seek to avoid paying tax in any particular jurisdiction. Tax-dodging expats often discover, however, the arm of the taxman…
A European Parliament move to revise EU law in order to improve legal certainty in cross-border family disputes concerning children has been welcomed by a leading expert in international family law, Rodney Hylton-Potts of Hylton-Potts Legal Consultants. Robert Matthews reports Analysis Rodney Hylton-Potts considers cross-border family disputes involving children to be a legal area that needs tackling. MEPs have recently agreed that such disputes and the protection of children’s rights, especially of those with separated parents, are matters that the EU needs to address. As he points out: “At present, we have directly conflicting national laws on outcomes, jurisdictions, stays,…
