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The government has announced that it will increase one-hundred and seventy two court and tribunal fees by 10% in May 2024, court fees having increased previously in 2016 and 2021. The increase this time comes following a government consultation paper which...
The following case analyses have been produced by Shaili Gohil-Desai of Burgess Mee in partnership with LexisNexis : Securing legal parenthood following a surrogacy arrangement (E v R and others) (lexis.com) The use of human...
An amended version of this article was first published on Today's Family Lawyer on 24 January 2024. Eye-watering delays, hearings vacated at the 11 th hour due to “ judicial unavailability ” and cases transferred out to...
The push for cohabitation reform continues - but how can you protect yourself today? In 2022, 22.7% of couples living together were not married or registered in a civil partnership [1]. A nationwide poll has shown that there is a significant...
Mediation has traditionally involved one mediator working with two clients to try to reach solutions. Over time, it has become clear that the flexible nature of mediation can be utilised to benefit a wider range of people, with an even broader range of...
Do I need to provide financial disclosure as part of any mediation and if so, what does that look like? As part of our series of articles for Mediation Week, today we are looking at the issue of disclosure when addressing the financial aspect of a...
Sometimes it is not possible to reach a compromise position with just two clients and one (or two!) mediators. In situations like this, or where perhaps one of the parties feels ill-equipped to mediate without support, mediation can be supported by lawyers....
First published on FTAdviser on 22 January 2024 Whether a party will be ordered to pay or receive spousal maintenance is often one of the first questions a client will ask. What is maintenance? The court’s power to order periodical payments...
Welcome to Mediation Week! As part of Mediation Week we will be posting an article every day to provide more information about this form of alternate dispute resolution. Burgess Mee has a significant ADR offering and five trained mediators – Kirsty...
Antonia Mee comments in ‘How adultery affects divorce, according to the experts’, published by Tatler on 12 January 2024. Click here to read the article....
First published on ThoughtLeaders4 HNW Divorce on 12 January 2024. When a couple get divorced, one of the first questions that may spring to mind is “Who will get what?” For family lawyers who specialise in financial remedies,...
First published on FTAdviser on 8 January 2024. On divorce, even if a couple wishes to settle their finances by agreement, it is important to know how a court would divide their finances. This is because all financial settlements on divorce are...
First published on Today’s Family Lawyer on 10 November 2023. There’s been a lot going on in the world of fertility and modern families in the last few months and even more exciting developments are on the horizon. Partner and...
We are used to people oversharing on social media but if you are not “that” person, the thought of telling friends and family that your relationship has come to an end can be daunting. Everyone will have your best interests at heart, but the idea...
While it is absolutely too early to put up your Christmas decorations it’s not too early to think about agreeing the arrangements for your children over the festive season. Christmas can be a stressful period for parents at the best of times and it can...
It was announced two weeks ago by Labour MP Emily Thornberry that a Labour government would reform the law as it relates to cohabiting couples, something that has previously been rejected by the current government. With marriage rates falling to the lowest...
What is the child maintenance service (CMS)? The CMS is a product of and is governed by the Department for Work and Pensions. It works out, collects, and pays out child maintenance on behalf of a parent (‘the receiving parent’) who cares for...
It is being reported in the press that Kevin Costner and his former wife’s divorce settlement has been decided by a judge in Santa Barbara. Reports say that the judge decided that they should be held to the terms of their prenuptial agreement which was...
Antonia Mee has been published in Spear's Magazine as she delves into the world of international child arrangements, illuminated by the recent separation announcement of Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner, a celebrity couple rooted in different home...
First published on Solicitors Journal on 5 September 2023 - Costs and conduct in financial remedy cases Leora Taratula-Lyons examines recent case law on how costs are awarded in financial remedy proceedings following divorce. Costs and conduct are more...
First published on FTAdviser on 10 August 2023 - Prenups: how well will they hold up in court? Earlier this year, judgment was handed down in the case of MN v AN [2023] EWHC 613 (Fam) by Moor J, which involved a dispute between a husband (aged...
More than a year on from the introduction of no-fault divorce in England and Wales, many divorcing parties are now aware that there is no longer a need to assign blame to one person for the irretrievable breakdown of a marriage. However, misconceptions...
With many family lawyers now returning from summer holidays, the first lengthy statement drafted after vacation may have made you realise that your desk set-up is overdue for an upgrade. If that sounds like you, check out David Lillywhite ’s latest...
What is without prejudice privilege? Without prejudice privilege, commonly referred to by its initials, ‘WP’, is the privilege applied to communications where the contents represent a ‘ genuine attempt to reach a settlement ’ [1]...
Reform of UK divorce law – can England and Wales learn from Scotland? As the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 reaches its 50th anniversary, there has been debate as to whether this legislation remains fit for purpose. Lord Bellamy KC has...
In 2007, the Mental Capacity Act 2005 introduced Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPAs), which replaced the old Enduring Powers of Attorney (EPAs). EPAs only allowed decisions to be made by an attorney on financial matters and to make decisions once a donor had...
First published on Today's Family Lawyer on 5 April 2023 - Building families through surrogacy: A new law The Law Commission of England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission, on the 29th March, released their report and draft bill detailing a...
The Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act 2020 will come into effect today, 27 February 2023. The Act raises the minimum age requirement for marriage to 18 in all circumstances. Previously, 16 and 17 year olds were able to marry if they had...
First published on LexisNexis’ family law blog on 24 February 2023 - Posthumous grandchildren? The floodgates remain closed In Re X (Catastrophic Injury: Collection and Storage of Sperm) [2022] EWCOP 48, Poole J, sitting in the Court of...
First published by FTAdviser on 31 January 2023. According to recent data from the Ministry of Justice, 33,566 applications for divorce were made between April and June 2022, the highest rate for a decade. Whether a short-term spike following the...
First published by FTAdviser on 10 January 2023. With the UK spending much of the past few years in a ‘permacrisis’ (and with no sign that this will change any time soon), many individuals will have approached the holiday break as an...
First published by workingmums on 15.12.2022. Written by Shyamantha Asokan . Burgess Mee, a family law firm in London, became the UK’s first accredited “fertility-friendly employer” last month. But what does this term...
First published by Solicitors Journal on 12 September 2022. On 6 April 2022, divorce law in England and Wales changed for the first time in 50 years with the introduction of “no-fault divorce”. This long-awaited change has been enacted...
First published by Today’s Family Lawyer on 8 th September Mining on the moon: The Luna-cy of crypto costs in matrimonial financial proceedings The pandemic-driven explosion of interest in crypto currencies has led the family courts in...
On 7 July 2022, Burgess Mee’s own Natalie Sutherland and CEO and Founder of Mimoza Fleur, Somaya Ouazzani, hosted In/Fertility in the City: Part 2 to a packed room of 120 people in Stephenson Harwood’s offices in London. This followed an...
The Government has proposed a change of rules applying to the transfer of assets between spouses and civil partners who are separating. The proposed changes ensure fairer tax rules that give spouses more time to transfer assets between one another without...
X v Z (Parental Order Adult) [2022] EWFC 26 In our third and final blog in the National Surrogacy Week ( https://surrogacyweek.co.uk/ ) series, we look at the first ever Parental Order that was made in respect of a surrogate born child who is now an...
H v United Kingdom In our second blog in the National Surrogacy Week ( https://surrogacyweek.co.uk/ ) series, we look at a European Court of Human Rights case which involved a young girl born through surrogacy. She took the UK Government to Strasbourg...
Jennings v Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority [2022] EWHC 1619 (Fam) National Surrogacy Week https://surrogacyweek.co.uk/ runs from 1 to 7 August 2022. Throughout the week we will be publishing a series of blogs highlighting recently reported...
Pride was a riot – a fact that often seems to be forgotten during this month’s sea of rainbow flags and merchandise. Pride month is celebrated on the anniversary of The Stonewall Riots. They were largely started by transgender women of colour at...
Whilst the team at Burgess Mee are regularly contacted to help resolve the financial aspect of a separation, they are also often approached after the event when a court order is in place but one party’s circumstances have changed to an extent that they...
First published by Family Law Journal (Legalease) in May 2022. Natalie Sutherland is a partner at Burgess Mee and a trustee of Progress Educational Trust Natalie Sutherland looks at posthumous conception and issues of consent and legal parenthood ...
Welcome to the next blog in our series of articles about supporting couples in the week that no-fault divorce changes the family law landscape. There are now quite a few services which offer a “ one lawyer, two clients ” type service. ...
In part three of our look at how best clients can use the new no-fault divorce legislation to try to remove acrimony from the process of separating, this article will talk a little more about ‘hybrid mediation’. Although hybrid mediation...
In part two of our look at how couples can remove the acrimony from their separation process, we are looking at co-parenting. Around two years ago at Burgess Mee we realised that what was lacking from the information and resources available online was...
No-fault divorce, arguably the biggest reform to the law governing divorce in England and Wales in over fifty years, comes into force on 6 April when the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 becomes law. The Act received royal assent on 25 June...
Rob Hanna , of Legally Speaking Podcast , hosts the miniseries Fertility in the Workplace . He is joined by Natalie Sutherland of Burgess Mee Family Law and Somaya Ouazzani of Mimoza Fleur in four discussions: How Can Law Firms Do...
LGBTQ+ history month takes place in February each year and was initiated in the UK in February 2005 by Schools Out UK (though it was founded in 1994 in Missouri). The intention is to raise awareness of and combat prejudice against LGBTQ+ people and their...
First published by What Investmen t on 8 February 2022. Relationship break ups need not be hard to do - Kay Ingram advises on finances on finances including pensions, property, and debt. Marriage in England & Wales has declined from 36 per 1,000...
With the new year comes a renewed focus on aims and objectives for the year ahead. In addition to thinking about holiday plans and home renovation projects, attention can be turned to ‘relationship goals’. One question the Burgess Mee team is...
We are approaching the time of the year when parents should be considering and trying to agree the arrangements for their children over the Christmas holidays. December can be stressful at the best of times, especially with the ever-present pressure to have...
Please join a discussion about the Ukrainian Surrogacy journey for UK intended parents with Natalie Sutherland , family solicitor and Partner of Burgess Mee Family Law , Louise Riding, Co-Founder of Ukrainian Surrogacy Agency Nest and Co , Alexander...
First published by Today's Family Lawyer on 7 October 2021 - Reform of UK fertility laws – ripe for change On 6th September, the Government announced an overhaul of the UK’s fertility laws, with plans to extend the...
The ‘traditional’ family unit consists of a mother and a father, who are respectively female and male, and that heterosexual gender-conforming couple bringing a child into the world will likely do so without ever thinking that ‘the...
Cohabiting couples are the fastest growing family type according to official figures. . Apparently the number of cohabiting couples has more than doubled between 1996 and 2016 (from 1.5 million to 3.3 million), representing 1 in 5 families who share this...
First published by WealthBriefing on 16 August 2021 - August Big Read: LPAs, Capacity And Silver Splitters – The Practitioner’s Perspective Written by Peter Burgess and Leora Taratula-Lyons In July the UK government announced...
Surrogacy & Donor Conception - w/ Natalie Sutherland, Mr Divorce Coach & Fay Petcher - The Divorce Coaching Podcast Ep19. First published by Divorce Coaching Podcast on 2 August 2021. Partner at Burgess Mee, Natalie Sutherland, joined Tom...
Introduction to Surrogacy, first published by Family Law Week and hosted by Rachel Cooper of Coram Chambers , gives and introduction to surrogacy law in England and Wales and looks at some interesting cases in the family court. Rachel is...
A Short Guide to Alternative Dispute Resolution Two of the most common concerns clients express at the initial meeting with our solicitors are the potential legal costs which will be incurred and the time and energy required to resolve their situation....
Part 2: When things go wrong. In Part 1 of this blog series, I looked at why you should obtain legal advice before conceiving using donor gametes and how that affects legal parenthood. In Part 2 I will consider what happens if you discover after...
Part 1: Legal Parenthood. If you are considering building your family through donor conception, chances are you have already travelled a long road of infertility or perhaps you are a same sex couple where donor conception is something you have come to...
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s recent interview with Oprah brought up many issues, one of which was whether they enjoyed a valid marriage ceremony before their much-publicised wedding in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. Meghan stated that...
When same-sex couples become parents, they are faced with a number of important issues which makes taking proper legal advice essential to avoid issues arising in the event that they unfortunately separate. This was highlighted in the recent judgment of FC...
LGBT+ History Month takes place every February, to promote equality and diversity and increase awareness of the LGBT+ community. We thought it would be useful to put a spotlight on two recent cases affecting the transgender community. Family law is an...
First published by Rock My Age on 11 February 2021. Erika Uffindell speaks to Natalie Sutherland about the complexities faced in surrogacy but they also look at the rewarding feeling that comes from helping others start or grow their family. ...
Vaccinations have been a controversial topic for some time and disputes over the merits of vaccinating children have garnered much media attention. Given the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and the work of the scientific community, these are likely to become...
With the news being dominated by Covid-19 for the last 9 months, we have had a bit of a break from hearing about ‘Brexit’. But, like it or not, Brexit will happen and the laws that we apply to family law issues come January 2021, will be very...
We are approaching the time of the year when parents need to have considered and agreed the arrangements for their children for the Christmas holidays. December can be stressful at the best of times, but there are going to be further complications this year...
#30 Finally Pregnatn x Modern Fmaily Bonus Episode - Surrogacy Law , first published by Finally Pregnant on 27 November 2020. Cat Strawbridge speaks to Natalie Sutherland about surrogacy law in the United Kingdom. Click here to to listen...
UK intended parents considering a US surrogacy journey - First published by Patriot Conceptions on 23 November 2020 What you need to know Family building through surrogacy is a complex and time consuming process in normal...
There are many different ways to resolve issues arising following the breakdown of a relationship. Now, more than ever before, there is a renewed emphasis on alternative forms of dispute resolution which are often quicker and cheaper than using the courts....
You may have seen the recent news surrounding “ no fault ” divorce over the last few years following the Supreme Court’s decision in Owens v Owens , and the subsequent Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill which made its way...
When a divorcing couple are trying to reach an agreement as to how to share their finances, it can often be the case that the two parties have very different opinions as to what this agreement should look like. This can be for many different reasons. It may...
The recent Supreme Court decision in Villiers v Villiers [2020] UKSC 30 has raised the issue of spousal maintenance claims in England and Wales in the national press once again. The English courts are already generally viewed as a generous forum for...
UPDATE 22.01.2021: Following the Court of Appeal case of Haley v Haley [2020] EWCA Civ 1369 , the circumstances in which you can appeal an arbitration award have changed. You can read about those changes here . In these uncertain times, the...
Due to the lockdown restrictions brought on by Covid-19, domestic abuse helplines have seen an influx in calls from victims who are experiencing emotional, physical, psychological, sexual or financial abuse. There are various options available to you through...
During the pandemic, family life goes on. This means for separated parents there is an additional layer of confusion, emotion and complexity around the arrangements for seeing the children. After some initial miscommunication, the government has now...
In this unprecedented time of crisis, we are acutely aware that there will be families who are under strain and will need access to family law services even where they may be in self-isolation or separated from family members. At the firm, we are doing our...
The end of a relationship, however it arrives, normally generates some sense of loss. It can take some time for clients to feel ready to speak to a solicitor about the practical reality of untangling their lives from their former partner. When they do feel...
Please note that this article does not cover situations where there has been Local Authority involvement. The fallout from a divorce or separation can have far reaching consequences. Hostility between separating couples can often have a knock-on effect...
The turn of the new year saw the introduction of civil partnership for opposite sex couples for the first time. While this was a welcome, progressive change, the huge gulf in the law which exists for couples who choose to live together, without registering...
Many clients who have attended a meeting with a solicitor or done their reading online will have heard about mediation as an option for resolving disputes around family breakdown. The government’s strategy for family justice is to require people to...
The Law Commission and Scottish Law Commission recently jointly conducted a public consultation on their provisional proposals to reform the law governing surrogacy which closed on 11 October 2019. After a period of reviewing the responses, a final...
It is a frequent question at the first meeting: can I ask my ex-partner to contribute to my costs of the ‘divorce’? In today’s post, I will be addressing the three most common areas of a separation: the divorce or dissolution ; resolving...
Q: Are they only for the rich? No. Such agreements are increasingly being used by a wide range of people to seek to limit the claims that might otherwise be made upon divorce. An agreement more often relates to people who have: Built up assets prior to...
The issue of “no-fault” divorce has been dominating the family law world for the last few years. Following the highly publicised case of Owens v Owens, family law professionals have campaigned for the Government to introduce new legislation to...
The summer holidays are upon us. What should be a time of happy anticipation can be stressful in the circumstances where separated parents do not agree on whether their former partner can take their child on holiday or do not agree on the destination. If...
For most of our clients, their priority is to resolve their matter as amicably as possible. It is important for us to do this, where possible, to keep both their legal fees and their stress levels down. In terms of a divorce (this does not include the...
The approach of the family courts in cases involving domestic violence has increasingly come under fire for not providing sufficient protection for vulnerable litigants. Concerns were raised by campaigning organisations and survivors that the legal...
Due to a change in the law on 3 January 2019, it is now possible for single parents who used a surrogacy service to obtain orders from the English Court, by which they will be recognised as the legal parent. Under English law, the surrogate is the legal...
For parents going through separation or divorce , the arrangements for the children will be at the forefront of their minds. Divorce or separation is one of the most stressful events that one can experience, but when there are children involved, the...
When parents can’t agree the arrangements for their children (such as where their child will live or how much time he/she will spend with each parent) and family mediation is either not suitable or has broken down, one parent may make a court...
Back in June, I wrote a blog following the outcome of the Supreme Court case of Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan, a cohabiting couple seeking legal recognition that the current law surrounding Civil Partnerships was discriminatory. Heterosexual couples...
The expression “meal ticket for life” is the latest media speak for its 1980’s equivalent “taken to the cleaners”. It is designed to strike fear in the hearts of all hardworking spouses that their future income will never...
The call for no-fault divorce in England and Wales was renewed this morning after the Supreme Court handed down judgment in the highly publicised case of Owens v Owens . By way of brief background, Mr Owens is 80 and Mrs Owens is 68. They have been married...
On Wednesday, judgment was handed down from the Supreme Court in the much-anticipated case of R v Secretary of State [2018]. This case is concerned with the Civil Partnership Act 2004 (CPA) and specifically, whether it breaches the parties’ rights...
Cohabiting couple families are the fastest growing family type – they are the modern family. The latest figures tell us that the number of cohabiting couples more than doubled between 1996 and 2016 from 1.5 million to 3.3 million, and this number is...
This week, for the first time, a man has been jailed for causing his former girlfriend’s death by suicide through his coercive and controlling behaviour. The mother of three had only been in a relationship with the man since March 2017. She endured...
The relationship between Scotland and England has always been a tumultuous one, but history tells us the two nations are more alike than either would care to admit. There was indyref followed by brexit which has prompted talk of indyref2 then to...
Love them or loathe them, Kim and Kanye West’s decision to use a surrogate mother in the creation of their family has placed the international media spotlight firmly on surrogacy. The Wests are far from alone, with the latest CAFCASS figures...
