Val and Don Rush

Financial Issues

Division of assets

The assets of a marriage include all property (whether in joint names or not); savings and investments; pensions and, in most circumstances, inheritances.

There are no hard and fast rules covering the division of the capital assets following the breakdown of a marriage, however, over the years, legislation and Court decisions have established general principles. Our starting point will be to divide the capital on a 50/50 basis but this is often varied by a number of factors:

	the value of the assets brought to the marriage by each partner (this is particularly true if the union has been of short duration)
	the number of children, their ages, and the arrangements made for their care and upbringing on a day-to-day basis
	the ability of each partner to move on independently, e.g., the ease with which a partner who has spent some years caring for the family might reasonably be expected to re-establish him/herself in the workplace

This list is not exhaustive – each case must be treated on its merits. Our aim is to reach a ‘clean break’ settlement wherever possible – i.e., where neither party continues to have any legal or financial interest in the other’s affairs, and one which is based on objective criteria followed by the courts.

Maintenance

Even when a ‘clean break’ settlement is reached there may well be a need for one party to make regular payments to the other in the form of maintenance. Where there are dependent children it is expected that the main wage earner (usually the husband) will pay maintenance for any children and, where relevant, the Child Support Agency fixes minimum levels for this. Spousal maintenance may be necessary where one parent (often the wife) has spent some years looking after the home and family and has little or no income in her own right. When she is still relatively young and might reasonably be expected to find gainful employment within a reasonable period such maintenance may be ‘time limited’, but each case will be judged individually.

The Children

More often than not children do not want parents to separate, and any anger and animosity makes the situation even harder for them to understand and cope with what is happening to their world. The children will want parents to remain on speaking terms at least, and for it to be possible for both to attend school and family events.

We encourage parents to focus on the interests of the children so that sensible and workable resolutions are easier to find.

Both have parental responsibility until a child is 18 years old. Implicit in the Children’s Act 1989 is a child’s right to have regular contact with both parents, and that Court intervention should not prove necessary. Mediation is always the preferred route and TR Resolutions helps parents reach workable arrangements and set these out in a Voluntary Parental Agreement where appropriate.

Court action should be the very last resort. Research conducted by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that ‘divorcing couples who turn to lawyers to sort out contact arrangements for their children are often making the situation worse’.

MEDIATION IS THE WAY FORWARD FOR ALL SEPARATING AND CARING PARENTS WHO WANT THE BEST POSSIBLE, COST EFFECTIVE, SOLUTION FOR EVERYONE IN THE FAMILY