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Family

Access Disputes – how to settle your differences without going to court

Whether you are married, in a civil partnership or just living together, splitting up can be an emotional time. If there are children involved, the feelings of hurt and anger can be magnified. However, this is the time when your children need you to be at your most level-headed. With Legal Aid now only offered in a handful of cases, more couples are trying to resolve their differences without going to court. While it may not be possible in every case, settling issues such as access to children without appearing…

Common law myths – Your rights as an unmarried couple

In today’s society, it’s increasingly common for couples to live together as ‘common law’ spouses or co-habitees rather than getting married. The danger of this is that many co-habitees believe they have the same protection as a common law husband or wife, which simply isn’t true. In reality, you have very little protection as an unmarried couple should the relationship end or if one of you dies. What are your rights if you break up? If your relationship ends, an unmarried partner who has stayed home to care for children…

Can pre-nup agreements help to save your marriage?

Wedding season is just around the corner, and has an extra buzz thanks to the brace of royal weddings planned for 2018. If you’re tying the knot this year, it’s likely you’ve spent time carefully planning everything from bouquets to bunting. But have you given a second thought to a pre-nuptial agreement? Some couples just don’t want to think about what happens if there isn’t the dreamed of fairy-tale ending. But what if a pre-nup could actually help make your marriage stronger? What can a pre-nup do? A pre-nup is…

Cohabitant agreements – giving unmarried couples rights

It’s an unfair fact of life, but in the eyes of the law a married couple has far more protection than a cohabiting, unmarried partnership. Even if you’ve spent years jointly contributing to the running of a house, split paying the mortgage between you, have children together, or have been living with each other for decades, the loss of a partner could change everything. If the relationship ends either through separation or bereavement, unmarried cohabiting couples do not have the same or similar rights as married couples. They don’t have…

Talking it out

Statistics show that more children than ever woke up Christmas morning with only one of their parents, following a relationship break-up. According to research, published by the Marriage Foundation, one in three children under the age of 15 woke up with just one parent on Christmas morning. Alongside, are many more families where couples will have 'held it together' for one last family Christmas, but who will now be heading for divorce. The latest EU data shows that the UK has the highest rate of family breakdown in Western Europe.…

The rights of Grandparents

In a divorce, nobody really comes out of the process a 'winner'. Hostilities between battling spouses can sour relationships not just between them, but throughout the wider family group too. Courts do their very best to protect the interests and the wellbeing of the most vulnerable members of the family, the children. But what about the older relatives? In a divorce, what rights do grandparents have, and how should they deal with what is always a painful and emotional situation? The forgotten victims Grandparents can often be the forgotten victims…

How to behave yourself in front of the kids during a divorce

During a divorce, the priority has to be the kid’s welfare and wellbeing. Using them as a weapon against your partner in a messy breakup is cruel in the extreme. It’s important to recognise from the outset that children react to stressful situations in very different ways to adults. They have no frame of reference to work from, so to them the feelings of abandonment, confusion, loneliness and even anger are new and often completely overwhelming. Often, children will blame themselves for the break-up of their parents’ relationship, and it…

Civil partnerships for all?

In a recent survey regarding whether Civil Partnerships should be made available for heterosexual couples, 57% of people asked stated that they felt all couples should be given the right to enter into a civil partnership and 20% of people stated that civil partnerships should be removed altogether, with 24% stating they did not know or did not mind what should happen. The term civil partnership in law has been used to refer to same sex relationships and the Civil Partnership Act 2004 governs this type of relationship. This also…

Unmarried couples need to protect themselves

A landmark victory in the Supreme Court has seen a Northern Ireland woman win a share of her former partner’s pension, with commentators saying it’s likely to add impetus to the drive for greater rights for unmarried couples.  But, in the meantime, cohabitees should face up and formalise arrangements, rather than keeping their fingers crossed.   The victory of Denise Brewster involved her claim for a survivor’s pension after her long-term, live-in partner Lenny McMullan died suddenly, shortly after they had become engaged.  He had paid into Northern Ireland’s local…

Getting rocky relationships through the New Year

The month of January can be a rocky one for families, in the post- Christmas period, which is often followed with news of unhappy couples who decide to call it quits, as family lawyers receive a surge of enquiries in the New Year.   According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the overall rates of divorce are continuing to fall. There were 111,169 divorces in 2014, a decrease of 3.1% compared with 2013 and 27% lower than 2003. Compared with data from 2004, divorce rates were…

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