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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Have another solicitor appointment today.....

162 replies

Lemmingswife · 15/08/2006 09:55

and am trying to gather all the bits I will need together, as he will be looking into whether I am entitled to legal aid today. So far I have wage slips, marriage certificate, tax credits information, mortgage statement & some mortgage info from the move into this house.
Trying to get everything together while H is sleeping at my Mum's house (he has been on nights & doesn't want disturbing!)
Does anyone know if there is anything else I need to take along with me, as I am in a bit of a fluster!

OP posts:
zookeeper · 15/08/2006 19:45

hiya - no agreement reached in mediation is binding; the only thing that is binding in divorce proceedings is an agreement drawn up, nearly always by solcitors, and stamped by the court that is dealing with the divorce. It can only be sent to the court after decree nisi and becomes effective on the grant of decree absolute.

I hate to be cynical, but many solicitors see mediation as a hoop to be jumped through in order to get legal aid - ie you won't get legal aid unless you have first of all tried it. In reality, a lot of people simply turn up to the mediators with not the slightest intention of coming to an agreement just so they can then get the form from the mediator to say that they have attended which then enables them to apply for legal aid.

ProfessorGrammaticus · 15/08/2006 19:53

Mediation can be useful, it can be unhelpful. You don't have to attend mediation to qualify for legal aid, you just have to go to an information meeting to find out what it is. If it's not for you, that's fine, you can get a legal aid certificate. But you don't have to pay back the costs of the mediation or the ehlp with mediation that your solicitor gives you.

Blu · 15/08/2006 19:55

Zookeeper - does the mediator have any 'guiding hand' - for e.g if lw's h was proposing something which in the normal run of divorce settlments was completely unfair to lw, and lw was unhappy with it, would the mediator 'facilitate' between them and get lw's h to understand the potential benefits of a mesher order and get him to see the way the courts will often rule in situations similiar to theirs?

Blu · 15/08/2006 19:56

Zookeeper or PGrammaticus or anyone who knows!

zookeeper · 15/08/2006 20:10

PG - ok - lets split hairs - you don't have to attend mediation, but you have to go along to find what it's all about - I think they're much more useful on children matters and pretty shite on finances. In my experience mediators do assist people to come to an agreemnt - but quite often not fair ones or ones that a court would consider fair.

All in all, it's definitely worth a try, if only to sort out what you're arguing about, but do take any agreemnet reached to a sol for advice.

zookeeper · 15/08/2006 20:13

PG - splitting hairs! - you don't have to attend mediation, but you have to go along to find what it's all about - In my experience they're much more useful on children matters and pretty shite on finances. In my experience mediators do assist people to come to an agreement - but quite often not a fair one or one that a court would consider fair.

All in all, it's definitely worth a try, if only to sort out what you're arguing about, but do take any agreemnet reached to a sol. for advice.

zookeeper · 15/08/2006 20:14

oh god one day I will learn to press the right buttons!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm off now.

Original poster
Lemmingswife · 15/08/2006 20:48

Thanks for all your advice.
My solicitor told me that mediation wasn't binding (sorry should have mentioned that in my post), & that he feels women often come out with less than he feels they should at the end of it. I have to be seen to give it a go, but he wants me to go into it with my interests at heart & can then go back to him after.

OP posts:
Blu · 15/08/2006 20:57

That sounds a good approach, lw.

I know you said before (or freckle said) that you could come straight out and then do what you feel best with your solicitor.

Interesting that your solicitor thinks that mediation can lead to women not getting the fairest deal.

I suspect that you will / would find it very hard to sit in mediation and thrash it out with H, especially as you know that what is in your best interests is not what he has been suggesting all along - so it is bound to be tricky. But in truth, if you can sit there knowing that your future doesn't depend on your ability to argue it through in front of him, then that should take the pressure off. You have your solicitor waiting behind the arras to look after you.

Original poster
Lemmingswife · 15/08/2006 21:15

Apparantly they often get around 52% as a result of mediation, 60% tops. He feels they should often get more.
It will be hard to sit there with H, especially as H has it set clear in his head what he expects to get out of this, but I guess I will have to give it a go.

OP posts:
spangles · 15/08/2006 21:36

Hi LW. Glad things went ok for you today. Your solicitor sound like he will fight your corner for you. Have you started divorce proceedings yet?

Original poster
Lemmingswife · 15/08/2006 23:54

I guess I have started the ball rolling, spangles!

OP posts:
Blu · 15/08/2006 23:58

Yes, 52% if the wife has to support children is hardly fair, is it? .

Original poster
Lemmingswife · 16/08/2006 00:02

I guess it isn't, Blu. My solicitor didn't seem at all happy with this. H is thinking 50/50 though!

OP posts:
Blu · 16/08/2006 00:05

DS is far more expensive to run than me, atm!

Original poster
Lemmingswife · 16/08/2006 00:08

I can imagine, my DS's are too!!
H is SO hard to have around atm.

OP posts:
Original poster
Lemmingswife · 16/08/2006 00:09

Sometimes he is not a nice man

OP posts:
Blu · 16/08/2006 00:11

Is he snarling around again?

Original poster
Lemmingswife · 16/08/2006 00:13

He is not around now, as in he has gone to work, but he was not a nice guy before he left.

OP posts:
Original poster
Lemmingswife · 16/08/2006 00:17

Ds was trying to tell him something, which could have been something or nothing & said "Daddy" bafore he asked the question.
H said "I hate that word"
DS must have felt deflated & I tried to tell H how nasty he was, but not sure how much gets through. I really hate H sometimes.

OP posts:
Original poster
Lemmingswife · 16/08/2006 00:19

I know the boys will be upset initially, but one day it will be for the best.

OP posts:
Original poster
Lemmingswife · 16/08/2006 00:25

Not sure how much longer I can bear living in these conditions though.

OP posts:
Blu · 16/08/2006 00:43

No, I don't know how much longer you can go on living like this either, so let's hope the leagl process proceeds very smartly.

That was VERY nasty of H to talk to Ds like that.

Upset they will be - but that kind of treatment causes a deep-rooted damage if there is much of it

poor DS.

Wat a bastard he is. His poor little boy!

westerngirl · 16/08/2006 01:04

Hi lw,

Just wanted to say I hope you get through this alright. You must be under the most incredible pressure on so many fronts. There was a movie title 'waiting to exhale'. You sound as if its difficult to even breathe at the moment.

An unhealthy domestic environment is so poisonous. Our home and family is where we're supposed to get our strength and support from to face everything else in life. Your boys are very lucky to have you. Wishing you the best.

Original poster
Lemmingswife · 16/08/2006 09:18

I was so shocked to hear H say that in front of DS last night. H was laying on the sofa playing his PSP, so obviously didn't want disturbing.
Poor DS walked away & didn't tell him whatever he was going to come out with.
I told H that it was an awful thing for him to have said & he should never say things like that in front of the boys. To this he said "Well, he is always going on & half the time he doesn't really have anything to tell me"
I felt so angry with him.
There just seems no end to this situation atm, although I know that one day there will be.

OP posts: