At Branch Austin McCormick, we strive to make the complex clear. We will break down the legal principles that apply to your case into language that you can understand. We will endeavour to reach a resolution to your case by negotiation.  However, if those negotiations break down, we will deal with your court application proactively and always undertake a cost against benefit exercise. Cohabitation cases can be expensive to run so you will want to be confident that your approach in any court proceedings is worth the expense and the risk involved in taking your case to court.

Our family law partner Saika Alam is a qualified Collaborative Family Law lawyer which means that in the right circumstances she can assist you in reaching a negotiated settlement outside the court process.  Saika is also accredited by the Law Society and is on the Advanced Family Law panel.

It is important to ensure that your rights are protected if you are planning to live with your partner, particularly if you intend to buy a home together. If you are planning to buy a home with your partner, you may enter into a cohabitation agreement or have a deed of trust drawn up (or have both).

The circumstances in which you might want to have a cohabitation agreement, or a trust deed are as follows:

• You will both be contributing different shares to the purchase of your home and you want to be clear on what share in your home each of you will hold
• You have children from a previous relationship or are planning to have more children
• You want to agree in advance who will pay for certain debts or bills
• You want to protect loans or gifts from the bank of “mum and dad”.

Although some legal remedies are not available to you, such as pension sharing or maintenance for yourself (rather than maintenance for any children),  you may still be able to make a claim on a shared home even if you do not jointly owned it with your former partner. In the alternative you may be able to make a claim for a greater share in a jointly owned home if your contribution to that property was greater than your partner’s contribution.

If you have children, you may be able to “borrow” your partner’s share in a home (whether owned jointly or in your partner’s name only) for as long as the children are dependent. This is commonly known as a “Schedule 1 claim” as it is made under Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989.  In some cases, you can ask the court for a lump sum on top of a housing allowance so that you can refurbish a home to an acceptable standard that matches the standard of living of your former partner.

If you have children then it may also be possible for you to apply to the court for a “top up” on any child maintenance payment your partner is paying to you as a result of a maximum income assessment by the Child Maintenance Service.  You would need to show that you have specific expenses for the children to pay that cannot be covered by the child maintenance that you receive for them.

Representing a professional footballer in a Schedule 1 claim brought against him by his former partner.
She was seeking housing provision for their son substantially above what was reasonable, taking account of our client’s income and capital. Obtaining a court order and setting up a trust for the child that protected our client’s capital.  That capital had to be paid back to the client when the child attained the age of 18 or completed full time education.

Representing a mother in very protracted proceedings where the father represented himself. 
He had refused to take legal advice, had refused to acknowledge the mother’s share in their home and had refused to put the property on the market for sale.  Obtaining a court order for the sale of the property with a direction that half of the sale proceeds be paid to the mother. In addition, obtaining an order allowing the mother to keep a proportion of the father’s share of the sale proceeds to invest in a new home for herself and their children until the last of the children attained the age of 18 or completed full time secondary education.

Our family lawyers are members of the national family justice organisation, Resolution, which promotes a constructive and cost-effective approach to family law issues — and that’s why we also have divorce and family law solicitors who are qualified as collaborative practitioners so that we can offer you Collaborative Family Law.

This allows us to work together with other collaboratively trained divorce and family law solicitors to find solutions for your family without Court intervention.

We also have experts who are Law Society Accredited and on the Law Society’s Family Law Advanced Panel. Where family law disputes cannot be resolved through negotiation and agreement, we take a firm and proactive approach to court proceedings. It is this experience and outlook that makes us stand out from the crowd.

If you would like to find out more about how our team of specialist family and divorce lawyers based in London can support you then please get in touch.

You can book a complimentary 30 minutes consultation session with our friendly and knowledgeable Head of Family Law, Saika Alam. In the session, Saika will learn more about the challenges that you are facing and talk through how we can help.

We understand that it is so important that you get to speak to your divorce and family lawyer before you make any kind of commitment to use them. You need to get to know your divorce and family lawyer as much as we need to get to know you. That is why we do not make a charge for your initial consultation with us.

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