Court's view? 1 skint parent or 2 comfortable ones

Everything does seem very biased in favour of women over men even though I have the children!

Actually one of the biggest divorce settlements ever in the UK was thought to be that of Paloma Picasso who is reputed to have paid out £250m making the high profile cases Charman, Miller, McFarlane, Parlour etc look puny in comparison.

For the record our two children lived with me and our settlement was 75:25 in my ex-husbands favour. In England & Wales the first consideration is housing the children, but under s25 Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 regard must be given to the other 7 matters of equal importance.

juttabeck wrote:

It really does seem to depend on the judge, the weather, the time of day, the phase of the moon etc

I have read on here that there are women who are just as hard done by as men, and I do try to keep this in mind when I think of the case I am involved in.

However, I think that the judge in my particular experience was biased in favour of emotional unprovable arguments over and above the financial arguments with supporting evidence. This is what annoys me about the system, regardless of who feels hard done by

I guess it is the phase of the moon, what the judge had for breakfast, how long it took them to get to work part that is so very wrong. It should not be too difficult to come for a reasonable formula that would satisfy the needs of all parties in the vast majority of cases.

And what of the children? the man is better off, the woman is better off, yet the courts supposedly focus on the children. What life do they get if when they come to teh skint parents house that they have to stay in and do nothing.

Still we will wait and see.

[/quote]
I guess it is the phase of the moon, what the judge had for breakfast, how long it took them to get to work part that is so very wrong. It should not be too difficult to come for a reasonable formula that would satisfy the needs of all parties in the vast majority of cases.
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Yes this is the thing that seems so wrong - all the courts and judges should be following the same formula and this formula should be completely transparent, something along the lines of the wikivorce calculator. The fact that you can have a single judge who may be having a bad day, is biased towards either men or women or is the golfing partner of one of the barristers should not come into the equation. They should clearly demonstrate how they have applied their findings based upon this set formula.

Hi all

Can I just add here FORGET THE FDRs! A complete waste of time! You will come out of there thinking you may aswell end everything! An FDR is a load of old tosh! every single person I have kept in contact with throughout their divorce path has felt the same way about FDRs, I will tell you all what I have told them and thats.........

Forget them, the Judge at an FDR does not and has not read every piece of information on the case, they cant as they dont have time! Its a 20minute hearing IF you are lucky enough!

The FH (whilst you should be doing everything to come to a settlement between yourselves) is the one you should be preparing for! If an FDR was used as its ment to be used then it would be a perfect hearing, where it will help you both reach an agreement, it isnt used like that though, the Judge knows if its got that far there is not much of a chance that it will be settled, so therefore gives his/her OPINION on what could happen if they were the Judge at FH. Its a ruddy good job half of them are'nt at Final Hearings!

All an FDR does because its not looked at in so much depth as at a FH is make one party feel extremely comfortable and one devastated.

Take ours........FDR my husbands ex wife was told she would be looking at 80% of my husbands pension and a £40k lump sum!!! My husband was as you can imagine devastated, she however walked out of court with a smile on her face, so big I thought she may just choke on it! (no such luck!!)

Outcome at a FH when Judge had read everything?

She got 30% of his pension and a lump sum of 2k with a Lawyers bill of 30K!!!!
Who lost out and who won? The lawyers!!

So people forget the FDR if you think and honestly believe that the outcome is unfair then its likely it is.
Its about common sense and whats right for both parties, show it all through evidence, i.e. if you can show a Judge by way of estate agents, house prices ect that would house ex partners comfortably instead of them living in over large houses, then do so. Collect anything that shows common sense on both sides, to show a Judge a workable acceptance to both sides, but keeping children as high priorites then do so.

Grinch, your arguement is a good one, so collect evidence and show a Judge you may be pleasantly suprised.

Kind Ones everyone
Louise

Hi Louise,

I'm quite glad to hear that - you hit the nail on the head on how I felt after my FDR!

I would presume (and hope!) that the judges involved in FH are more specialised and knowledgeable than those in the FDR - do they tend to mainly do FH cases?

One thing that has concerned me somewhat was an email I got from a solicitor acquaintance of mine:

"The costs are awarded against the one who gets the worst deal – so if you were fighting for 55/45 split but got a 50/50 you would pay all the costs – yours and hers, if the decision was 55/45 she gets all the costs. The loser pays all. This means that the parties are much more eager to settle just in case they get lumbered with the others huge bill. Think about it, if you end up with 50/50 but have to pay your costs of £20k then hers of £20k – you are actually only getting half less another £40k which is less than 50%. I have been to Slough CC a few times and seen it in action."

Is this actually the case or do you pay your own costs? This is something that is really concerning me if it does go to FH.

Now this is confusing i was told because i'm the applicant i would pay the costs.

Hi rdcox

Well the thing is the Judges at FDR also hear FH cases too. Its just at a FH they will (if they are a good one) have read through the case maybe a couple of days before, they cant act like they do at FDRs because if they miss something at a FH and its later found out, you can always appeal and no Judge wants that, it calls their knowledge or expertise into question, so therefore will make sure they have done everything right, but it is down to YOU to provide the information to a Judge, so this is where you and your files and evidence come into play. You get those right and a Judge should listen and base his/her Judgement on both sides to the arguement!
Our Fh Judge had at previous stages been the Judge at other hearings. So whilst you may see one at your fdr you wont see that particular Judge at the FH its not allowed. (they will be biased)

As for costs in June06 (i think) it became law each party pays their own costs, but this is and still is dependant on the Judge, who can still award costs against the other for being obstructive and carrying things too far when a reasonable settlement could of been sorted many months before.
At our FH (my partners and his ex wife that is)the Judge allowed us time to go outside of the court room and based on what was said in the hearing, hopefully come to an agreement before the Judge made a ruling. (Our fist FH was adjourned to account for me and my finances, I asked the Judge if i could be an intervenor at my husbands FH, the Judge agreed to allow me to be and adjourned the first FH to allow me to provide evidence to the courts, my partners ex wife and her solicitors had disregarded me at every available opportunity in the three years we were fighting this) On the day of the FH the Judge asked for me to attend a hearing and based on what was said at that hearing (in which I was allowed to attend) then that was the decider to whether my husbands and his ex wifes FH went ahead! Anyway the Judge more or less pointed out what was roughly going to happen should the FH go ahead and also said the cost implications to his former wife were certainly going to be met by her. (Her and her solicitors drew this out for 3 years and we provided all the evidence to show this could of been sorted out over two years before) Hence her bill of THIRTY THOUSAND POUNDS! She would also of had to pay our fees, but if you settle before a Judge awards it then you each pay your own bill anyway.
His former wife finally settled 5 minutes before we were due to have a FH. So she had to pay her own costs anyway but on the evidence in front of the Judge she would of awarded our costs to his ex as well.
The moral of the story is Know what you are talking about, have the evidence in front of you and paginated enough to disregard any of the other parties lies or nicer word "untruths" and stand your ground.
As long as you use common sense and believe your arguement is right and FAIR for BOTH parties and not totally biased to one party, can show a Judge how reasonable you have been then you really should not have any trouble at all.
But dont forget Number One priority and thats any children.
Kind ones
Louise