divorce money advice

bdw888

My sister has recently announced she is getting a divorce and my gut feeling is it's going to be financially messy. My sister is not very clued up when it comes to money matters so i was wonder if anyone could help me with some advice to guide her. The main asset is the house, is this split 50/50 or should it be more in her favour as she will be looking after their two children?
Any comments back would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Ben

Gale_10

Try and us a solicitor that has been personally recommended. Get a free first session with them and see what her legal position is. Make the appointment and pick her up and take her to the solicitors, otherwise she might not do it because we women certainly get a bit emotional over divorces.

Its difficult because divorces are what solicitors make their money on. I read somewhere on here about a site where you can save money with the solicitors by doing some of the paperwork yourself, it's easily available from the court.

She should tell the solicitor that it might get messy, and also make a note of all the money in the account, print out statements of every account, so she can prove whats in there, so he can't take it all out and spend it.

She must also close all joint accounts so he doesn't run up debts in her name.

She might say she doesn't want to do all this, but she must do it for the sake of the children. She has to financially separate herself from him as soon as possible.

She will need to go to www.entitledto.co.uk to work out what she is entitled to, she may be surprised.

Also she can go to the CSA website where there is a calculator to work out how much he has to give her.

He will have to keep paying the mortgage until the children are eighteen I believe, although I think there are exceptions if she remarries, she will need to ask her solicitor about that.

It might be a good idea for her to photograph everything that is in the house that she wants to keep and feels is hers. Also keep receipts of everything so she can prove that she bought them if she did.

It might be a good idea to go to CAB for a referral to a solicitor.

Thats all I can think of for now.


Gale

PS CSA website has a section on *Issues for seperating couples*

Gale_10

With thanks to Mookieandco for this post:




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" You can seek your legal costs from him (sometimes called wasted costs). Essentially it is all the costs you spent on solicitors which are unnescessary costs because he refused to co-opertate and reach agreement in respect of the property.

With regards to the divorce, it should be all your legal costs so long as your solicitors have asked for it in the prayer."

Another thing for your sister to remember, Ben.

Gale

bdw888

many thanks Gale.