Separation Agreements - can you do it yourself?

[TheFutureMrsClooney]

I had a fixed fee appointment with a solicitor last night. She confirmed everything I'd already researched myself but was encouraging me to go down the unreasonable behaviour route for a quick divorce.

On reflection, I think it would be better for all of us (2 teenage DDs to consider) if we just separated calmly and divorce after two years.

My question is, can DH and I come up with a separation agreement covering the finance and access? It will probably be a 60/40 split with no spousal maintenance. It's unlikely to be contentious in any way.

Has anyone done this and is there any template for the wording?

I would advise that you have it done properly. A separation deed once signed is a legally enforceable contract, however it can be overturned by the court if it is in anyway unfair or ambiguous.

If all documentary disclosure has taken place and the parties agree, it should take no more than 2.5/3 chargeable hours (£500/600).

It is not uncommon for sep deeds to be overturned if only one party has received legal advice.

Remember also that a separation deed can not deal with a pension sharing order, so if that has been agreed, it will have to be covered by a consent order within the eventual divorce proceedings, and mentioned in the separation deed.

Thank you.

We're going for pension offset - does the same apply? He's only 8 years off retirement so I don't want to touch his pension but I also don't want to end up supporting him (I'm ten years younger).

Our eldest will leave home in two years and the solicitor advised that if I don't do something soon I'll be entitled to less because we won't have to provide a home for her.

Should I get him to find a solicitor when we've both agreed what we want financially then present it to them both?

You can agree between yourselves write it down and ask a solicitor to draft a separation agreement. Most people(even solicitors) won't have the knowledge or experience to do this themselves unless they happen to be a family lawyer. As others have said where there has been full disclosure, both parties took legal advice and the agreement is "fair" (ie within the criteria set out in s25 Matrimonial Causes Act 1973) a separation agreement may carry weight.

There is a lot to be said for waiting and divorcing after two years with consent and without having to make allegations of unreasonable behaviour. However, you should be aware all too often separation agreements are disputed later and need to be either renegotiated or there is an expensive legal contest.

Thanks, the one I saw is a family lawyer, came highly recommended. She's also a trained mediator but obviously can't do that for us now that she has given me legal advice.

My DH has never had any involvement in our finances (I suspect he doesn't know his own salary) and everything is in a joint account so full disclosure shouldn't be a problem.

I've seen an online service charging £30 - it seems to require the same information as the E something form she was talking about. Do we have to do the full 12 months bank statements etc if we do it ourselves? I've recently had a huge shredding session in preparation for moving out!

The problem is you only get what you pay for. Many online services do not include legal advice (in fact some aren't run by lawyers) and their conditions include a disclaimer so you either pay separately for advice or run the risk of the agreement being open to challenge and huge legal bills.

When legal advice is taken a lawyer would be negligent and could leave themselves open to claims if they didn't insist on a full disclosure. However, when disclosure is voluntary and there is no disagreement there doesn't need to be as much detail or accuracy as when there are contested court proceedings.

Agree with mumblechum and STIDW (as always) ref having separation agreement professionally drafted. I've seen people who have done their own thinking it would be ok and then two years down the line finding it wasn't legally binding.

Money well spent on a good family lawyer drafting it so you know it is 100% watertight

I'd disagree. You can do your own. Get a few templates and draft it carefully. Then take it to a friendly lawyer who can check it over and confirm it is good.

Lawyers are in the business of making money. Some have no qualms about making a fight where none is needed.

The first ones I went to simply wanted an amicable divorce to become a fight.

The one I ended up with, read over the agreement and said it was fine. Gave me the option of having it filed officially.

Now the draw backs. If only one of you uses a lawyer, theoretically at some point the other party could say we never received legal advice and now challenge it. However unless the agreement is unfair, it would not make it far.

sweeping statements there
Most helpful to the OP I'm sure!

I would def recommend the discussing and agreeing it bewteen you and then both going and seeking a solicitor each to ensure it is done properly. The only time it becomes expensive is if you then argue about the money side!

My ex and I did this, we did all of it ourselved apart from having one solicitor each to run through the financial agreement, explain the implications and sort it out. Was really cheap even with a decent solicitor each.

OP asked if anyone has done this. I answered because I did do this. I did go to different lawyers and some were more interested in fighting, even though we had agreed everything up front. In my case we used one lawyer who worked for me, to handle any legalities.

I bought and downloaded various templates and customised them to our situation. That is what the final lawyer read over, (corrected a mistake oops), and said it was fine.

CarGirl is advice is spot on, it is more watertight if you get a lawyer each - but do so after you have worked out things.

The thing to watch out for is lawyers who just want to rack up charges, rather than work for you.

Just to clarify, I'm not a solicitor and have no vested interest. The problem is there are thousands of precedences that can be used and without legal knowledge and experience it's knowing which ones to use.
Judges are duty bound to ensure agreements/consent orders are "fair and reasonable" within the context of s25 MCA1973 and it isn't just possible to read the Act to understand it.

Even solicitors don't get it right all the time, but doing it yourself leads to far more serious errors more frequently. Solicitors are regulated and insured so there is some come back if things go wrong but there is no compensation for someone doing it themselves.

In the last 7 or 8 years there hasn't been a week gone by where I haven't seen one person seriously disadvantaged because they did it themselves and made basic errors. Very often people try to include terms which cannot be enforced by the courts. For example, one father had drafted an order using 'templates' giving the mother the bulk of the capital assets in exchange for him not paying child maintenance. It was open to the mother to apply to the CSA one year after the order was in force so what had been agreed in the consent order was not enforcable.

Lots of lay people do not understand recitals, orders and undertakings.
In one case a mother thought maintenance pending suit would continue and failed to ensure there was an order for spouse maintenance. The outcome was she was left £1k a month for ten years worse off and the children are brought up in real poverty.

Paying a solicitor £1k - £1.5k for an agreement /consent order is money well spent to ensure there are no nasty surprises later. Doing it yourself is frequently a false economy costing people dearly. There are some solicitors who are dinosaurs and inflame matters but many aren't.

Thanks everyone, didn't know it was going to be so controversial!

The solicitor I saw said that the ideal would be for us to agree what we want to do then get her to draft the agreement once DH has taken advice.

I have asked him to do this - whether he will cooperate is a different matter, but I'm now in the odd situation of having both my lovely girls telling me they don't want us to live like this any more (he's downstairs watching TV, I'm upstairs with them).

I don't think I'm asking for anything unreasonable so I may have to risk just getting her to draft the agreement without his involvement and hope it doesn't get rejected in court. This pretty much sums up the last 27 years of our life

Thanks everyone

STIDW, you've summed it up so much better than I could have

FTMC, sounds a very sensible course of action. Good luck to you and I hope things are ok with your DDs. Kids do adjust to these situations and I hope that yours do so as painlessly as possible x

I know there's a lot of threads around separation and divorce, so please forgive me as I'm sure I'm duplicating questions that have come up before.
My husband and I are separating with a view to divorce in 2 years. We have 2 kids (13 and 16). We are selling our current house and I am buying another not too far way so that kids can continue to go to the same school.
Husband has agreed that I should use the monies (not much) arising our of the house sale as a deposit for the new house. Not sure where he will live but he has a new partner, so I assume he will live with her. What I need to know is where to find a good family lawyer. We've been encouraged to go into mediation at a huge cost (6 sessions plus at ludicrous amounts of money). We don't need mediation, but we do need financial advice. In particular, if my husband technically has rights to access half the monies invested in our new house deposit, what rights do I have should he suddenly decide to want to access that money. How do we get a financial agreement that is water tight but that doesn't cost us hundreds of pounds?
Any advice welcome!

You would be better off starting a new thread rather than reviving a 9-year old one. Some posters won't notice the date and will answer the original poster rather than you. However, you need to see a solicitor.