Separation and financial rights

Are you splitting with your spouse or partner? We’ll guide you through your legal rights and obligations and help you move on smoothly

If you’re separating with a spouse or partner, you’ll need to resolve a number of issues. Key aspects could include your finances, home, and the care arrangements for children.

Workable solutions

Our experienced and empathetic Family Law team negotiate these and other aspects for clients all over Scotland. We use our legal skills and creativity to find solutions that work for everyone involved – helping avoid the cost and bitterness of protracted disputes or court proceedings.

We offer a fixed fee preliminary advice package to give you a clear understanding of your options, the remedies available to you, and the likely costs for the next steps.

Negotiating a separation agreement

A key step in helping you move on is a separation agreement, a legally binding contract that draws a line under your legal relationship.

Whilst there is legislation in place to regulate financial matters following separation, and this is what will be applied should the matter require to be regulated by a court, during negotiations you are free to agree how to resolve matters in any way you and your spouse or partner wish.

What the agreement covers will depend on your own situation – from financial support, to dividing assets including business interests to co-parenting. We’ll help you reach an agreement that protects your interests and could simplify a future divorce or civil partnership dissolution.

Your financial position

However simple or complex your financial arrangements, we’ll help you gain certainty and confidence about your future financial position. This could include:

• Negotiating financial support arrangements both pre-and post-divorce
• Establishing which assets count (or don’t count) as matrimonial property, and how best, from both a financial and practical perspective, to divide them between you – including the family home or other homes
• Advising on pension-sharing options
• Helping you assess how any joint business activities should be dealt with in a way that makes both commercial and relationship sense moving forward.

Parenting arrangements

If you have children with your spouse or partner, your future arrangements for residence and contact will be central to any separation negotiations.

It is also advisable to consider major decisions relating to your children, such as when and where they will attend school, who they will spend Christmas with each year and when, where and with whom they will holiday each year.

Combining legal knowledge with the human touch, we’ll help you design workable residence, contact and co-parenting arrangements that also cover major decisions for a certain future. We can also liaise with law firms in other countries or jurisdictions, if relevant, or represent and support you in court, if other options have been exhausted.

With you on your journey through life

'With you on your journey through life' is our series of videos featuring our dedicated team showcasing how we can support you and your family through every milestone in life.