In Ipswich, Suffolk and Colchester, Essex
Kerseys’ specialist team of qualified Family, Relationship, and Divorce Solicitors are always on hand to help you through even the toughest times with practical and straightforward advice.
Our team of experienced divorce and family lawyers are sympathetic people dedicated to helping clients – whether married or unmarried – through serious family troubles. The team has many years of experience in acting for clients in difficult matrimonial cases and childcare proceedings.
If you have any questions or queries regarding family, relationships and divorce law, then get in contact with our lawyers in either our Ipswich or Colchester office.
When a relationship breaks down and there are children involved, parents are not always able to reach agreement about issues such as who the children will live with and how much time they should spend with the other parent.
ChildrenCollaborative Law is a form of alternative dispute resolution for family issues such as divorce, finances and children arrangements.
Collaborative LawWe understand that the breakdown of a marriage is a highly stressful and emotional time. In order to obtain a divorce, the court has to be shown that the marriage has irretrievably broken down.
DivorceFamily mediation is a process where a Mediator supports and helps you and family members to communicate more effectively and to find consensual resolution during times of dispute.
MediationWe can help you through the most delicate and emotionally upsetting of family problems with sensitivity coupled with practical efficiency.
RelationshipsCohabitation Agreement
With more and more people choosing to live together rather than marrying, it is a good time to review this area of law.
It remains a myth that two people living together are “common-law husband and wife” and it is also a myth that you somehow acquire an interest in the other person’s property or assets after you have lived together for six months.
Cohabiting couples remain the least protected section of society, but there are things you can do.
Cohabitation Agreement
A Cohabitation Agreement sets out who owns what and in what proportion and gives couples the freedom to set out how they intend to divide their property and assets should the relationship end.
They can also be used to record how the relationship will work, such as who pays the mortgage or food or who pays for refurbishment or renovation to the property and whether that in itself will give rise to an interest in the property or, whether they intend to take out life insurance or make a Will.
Wills
If you die without making a will (to die intestate) there is very restrictive rules governing who gets what.
Unmarried couples are not recognised under law.
Therefore the only way for an unmarried partner to inherit, is under a Will.
Buying a Property
Great care needs to be taken when buying a property as unmarried couples, or where couples are together but a property is bought in only one partner’s name.
Trust Law can be a legal minefield, so advice setting up a declaration of trust, for example, is critical.
A declaration can set out who provided what to the purchase price and can regulate who gets what proportion if the property needs to be sold.
We have a question and answer page to give simple answers to commonly asked questions regarding divorce.
Divorce FAQsWe have a question and answer page to give simple answers to commonly asked questions regarding children and child law.
Children FAQsA judicial separation is a formal separation which is sanctioned by the court. It enables the court to make orders about the division of money and property, similar to the orders which can be made on divorce, without actually terminating the marriage.
Legal Proceedings are court based applications such as divorce, finances, children arrangements as well as Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustee Act applications which cover unmarried couples with property disputes.
Yes, as long as it is correctly undertaken. We offer a Change of Name Deed service. If seeking to change a forename or surname of a child, both parents need to consent. Where consent is not given, a court application can be made to deal with this specific issue.
Pre and post nuptial agreements are yet to “bind” courts to their content should they be disputed. However there has been a raft of case law since the leading case of Radmacher in 2009 in which Courts are now attaching significant weight to their existence as long as the criteria for their formulation has been strictly adhered to. Ultimately however, a court will always consider the content of such an agreement when deciding financial relief cases.
Fair, acceptable settlement through negotiation is always the preferred solution, to save you stress and expense. If that’s not possible, then we will fight your case strongly through the courts.
We encourage you to gather as much relevant information and documentation as you can, in order to lessen your costs. Our initial advice will include assessing whether you can handle the case, or elements of it, yourself. It’s another potential way you can contain expense.
We prefer to give you a firm quotation of costs upfront. If that isn’t possible in your case, we will explain why.
We offer a 45 minute fixed fee appointment, in which we provide you with bespoke legal advice and include setting out your options on how to move forward. Our fixed fee for this is £165.00 inclusive of VAT but this also includes the fee for Anti-Money Laundering checks that we have to perform and is payable in advance of the meeting. Don’t worry if the meeting runs over, you will not be charged any additional fee.
This is a difficult one. There is a route for applying to the court to change a financial settlement because of an unforeseen and unforeseeable event since the court made the financial order. However it is not a given that this will be enough to persuade the court to change a settlement. In a recent case the former husband asked the court to reduce a lump sum to be paid to his ex-wife because his school meals business had suffered a financial downturn due to the covid pandemic. This downturn did not occur until September 2021 when in fact most children had returned to school. Prior to that the furlough scheme and business interruption loans propped the business up. On this basis the ‘event’ – the return to school and reduction of government support, was foreseeable. This is not to say that the covid pandemic would not potentially be deemed unforeseeable and unforeseen in some other cases. But you should always think first as to whether any other legal avenues are available to remedy matters before launching this type of application.
Lump sum payments made between spouses and pursuant to a court order are generally tax exempt, although crucially the Order will need to be first in time which means ahead of any application for Decree Absolute. Disposals of assets such as a transfer or sale of a business, or shares or properties other than the martial home can all give rise to tax Capital Gains Tax (“CGT”). Even the disposal of the martial home, in certain circumstances could end with a tax bill. Recognising this means we always involve a tax expert such as an accountant at an early stage to advise on any tax issues to ensure that whatever the agreement, there are no nasty surprises lurking around the corner when the parties come to implement the Order.
This is not a straight forward answer. The answer will depend on the circumstances of the case, the income of both parties, who is living where and what the bills are – certain bills like Council Tax carry criminal penalties if unpaid. Credit ratings can be adversely affected by the non-payment of a mortgage or certain utility bills. Not paying your buildings and contents insurance could be fatal to any claim should something unforeseen happen to your home and it can also invalidate your mortgage terms – a bespoke, case by case analysis is required here and the advice given will reflect that approach.
Adultery is the act of sexual intercourse with a person of the opposite sex during marriage. Crucially adultery cannot be cited in same sex marriages. Adultery is one of 5 facts linked to a party seeking to dissolve their marriage due to irretrievable breakdown. This is the only “fact” that requires the other party to admit to the act or is for the petitioning party to prove (in the event it is denied) within divorce. If the co-respondent is named in the petition, they too must be served with the divorce papers and they too will be required to admit to adultery. It is advisable not to name co-respondents.
Download our brochure in PDF format on Family Services here.
Download
Subscribe Now for Newsletter and Updates
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
_zcsr_tmp | Zoho - This cookie is necessary for the login function on the website. | |
bcookie | 2 years | This cookie is set by linkedIn. The purpose of the cookie is to enable LinkedIn functionalities on the page. |
collect_chat_launcher_load | 1 month | This cookie is set by the provider Collect.chat. This cookie is used for enabling the chat function on the website. |
collect_chat_page_load | 1 month | This cookie is set by the provider Collect.chat. This cookie is used for optimizing the chat-box functionality by recognising the user. |
kerseys-_zldp | 1 year | This cookie identifies the unique visitors for the website, www.kerseys.co.uk for Zoho Live Chat functionality. |
kerseys-_zldt | 1 day | This cookie identifies unique visits for a visitor in the website, www.kerseys.co.uk for Zoho Live Chat functionality. |
lang | This cookie is used to store the language preferences of a user to serve up content in that stored language the next time user visit the website. | |
lidc | 1 day | This cookie is set by LinkedIn and used for routing. |
ypsession | 1 day | For Yumpu PDF viewer. |
yumpu_slc | 7 days | PDF viewer |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
_ga | 2 years | This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors. |
_gat_UA-46814924-1 | 1 minute | This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites. |
_gid | 1 day | This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the website is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages visted in an anonymous form. |
_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress | 30 minutes | This cookie is used to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie. |
_hjFirstSeen | 30 minutes | This is set by Hotjar to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether this was the first time Hotjar saw this user. It is used by Recording filters to identify new user sessions. |
_hjIncludedInPageviewSample | 30 minutes | This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that user is included in the data sampling defined by your site's pageview limit. |
_hjTLDTest | session | When the Hotjar script executes we try to determine the most generic cookie path we should use, instead of the page hostname. This is done so that cookies can be shared across subdomains (where applicable). To determine this, we try to store the _hjTLDTest cookie for different URL substring alternatives until it fails. After this check, the cookie is removed. |
vuid | 2 years | This domain of this cookie is owned by Vimeo. This cookie is used by vimeo to collect tracking information. It sets a unique ID to embed videos to the website. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
_fbp | 3 months | This cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website. |
AVPUID | 1 year | imagazine.advertserve.com Used to identify the visitor across visits and devices. This allows the website to present the visitor with relevant advertisement - The service is provided by third party advertisement hubs, which facilitate real-time bidding for advertisers. |
b3e783bb62 | This cookie is set by the provider Zoho. This cookie is used for collecting information on user interaction with the web-campaign content. This cookie helps the website owners to promote products and events on the CRM-campaign-platform. | |
bscookie | 2 years | This cookie is a browser ID cookie set by Linked share Buttons and ad tags. |
fr | 3 months | The cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin. |
MUID | 1 year 24 days | Used by Microsoft as a unique identifier. The cookie is set by embedded Microsoft scripts. The purpose of this cookie is to synchronize the ID across many different Microsoft domains to enable user tracking. |
NID | 6 months | This cookie is used to a profile based on user's interest and display personalized ads to the users. |
test_cookie | 15 minutes | This cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies. |
UserMatchHistory | 1 month | Linkedin - Used to track visitors on multiple websites, in order to present relevant advertisement based on the visitor's preferences. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
_hjid | 1 year | This cookie is set by Hotjar. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID. |
AnalyticsSyncHistory | 1 month | No description |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional | 1 year | The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others | 1 year | No description |
S | 1 hour | No description |