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When a maintenance order is in force, whether payments to a spouse for her own maintenance (‘spousal maintenance’) or payments to a spouse to help maintain a child or children (‘child maintenance’), the amount of maintenance can always be varied. If the circumstances of the payer or of the payee change and the amount
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Although the evidence is a bit sketchy, it seems that Facebook is being mentioned in more and more divorce petitions. People post things about themselves that can amount to an admission of adultery or unreasonable behaviour. If they’re also a bit vague about how to configure their privacy settings, they make it easy for their
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It is probably the most persistent misconception of all – the idea that you acquire legal rights if you live with someone, or live with them for a certain length of time. “But we’re common law husband and wife”. There’s no such thing as common law marriage. If you live with someone without marrying them
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Never assume anything about how a pension scheme operates. For example, if the scheme member dies while he is still married, does his widow get a widow’s pension? It may depend on whether the couple have separated or are still living together. Does pronouncement of decree nisi make a difference? Or the issue of divorce
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You can’t share a pension without a divorce and a court order. Any of the other financial transactions that a separating couple can agree on (eg maintenance, lump sum, property transfer) can be done voluntarily without involving the court. The one exception is pension sharing, for which you need a court order. Because the court
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When a child’s parents separate, the child’s grandparents can apply to the court for a contact order (that is, an order requiring the parent with whom the child is living to make the child available for contact). BUT the grandparents first have to apply to the court for permission to make an application for a
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Sometimes a couple go through two marriage ceremonies, for example the first on a beach somewhere exotic and the second back in England. It can become important to know which of the two ceremonies actually created the marriage, and in the event of a divorce it may even become necessary to ask the court to
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In a divorce it sometimes happens that a spouse gets to keep money or property that they have inherited. However if some of that money or property may be needed to meet the financial needs of the other spouse, it goes into the matrimonial ‘pot’. In most cases that aren’t ‘big money’ cases, an inheritance
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If you make an application to the court for a financial order or an order with regard to children, you have to demonstrate to the court either that you have tried mediation and it has not succeeded or that your case is not suitable for mediation. In either case there is a standard form which has to be signed
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If you want to rely on adultery when you divorce your spouse, you should be aware that you have to find it intolerable to live with him or her. During the course of the proceedings you have to swear an affidavit. Are you prepared to swear on oath that you find it intolerable to live with your
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