The Family Law Team, used their extensive expertise in divorce proceedings to reach a favourable agreement for a client with significant financial assets.
Background
The senior director of a large company sought Thrings’ guidance in navigating divorce proceedings, initiated by his wife. Referred to Thrings by another client, he asked for assistance in reaching a child support agreement for his three children and a spousal support agreement for his wife, who had significantly less independent income.
With property valued at around £1 million, pension assets of around £1 million and cash of around £200,000, he approached us for advice in dividing his assets, with the objective to protect his future income.
Our involvement
We began by conducting initial meetings to provide detailed advice about the division of his assets and develop a strategy to navigate divorce proceedings, which are highly procedural and involve detailed paperwork. We also engaged our client in the relatively complex process of disclosure, where both parties complete financial statements to clarify their assets. Having established his assets, we devised a strategic approach to the spousal settlement and began negations.
Due to his ex-wife’s unreasonable requests regarding spousal maintenance, we sought written advice from a barrister, who supported our position as being fair. While engaging in the court process, the judge also indicated our proposal was reasonable and we reached a settlement on that basis – achieving our client’s strategic objectives.
The outcome
Through our court experience and relationship with expert barristers, our client was able to provide spousal maintenance for five years, rather than the 14 years initially requested by his ex-wife.
Having instructed an actuary to look at the division of assets, we were able to use these calculations to achieve a tactical, tax-efficient solution – where the client gave away around 30 percent of his pension. This enabled him to comply with the pension sharing order while retaining the ability to rebuild his pension without breaching the tax threshold. Child maintenance was fixed, and agreed in line with the government’s child maintenance service rate.
The final settlement met all the criteria for a well-reasoned divorce settlement, while leveraging our experience to achieve our client’s financial objectives.