Family Law Solicitors

This is the application form used to state that you want to issue financial remedy proceedings in court.

This is an extensive and vital form in financial remedy matters which is used to provide financial disclosure. This form requires you (and your spouse who must also complete it) to provide full details about your finances with supporting evidence. For example, you must list all your bank accounts and provide bank statements.

After reviewing the other party’s Form E, you might have some questions or there may be some areas that don’t add up. Each party can submit a questionnaire to the other which asks for clarification about these.

Once your questionnaire has been responded to, you will hopefully have a full picture of the other party’s finances. However, that isn’t always the case and you might feel some of their answers still don’t give a full picture. If that happens and the other party agrees, you can both submit a schedule of deficiencies.

We normally simply use a single document so it doesn’t get confusing, which will be laid out as: question about something in Form E > answer to question > deficiency in answer > response to deficiency.

Upon receipt of the Form A, the court will assign a case number and list a FDA, which will be the first hearing. This is a chance for the court to review the issues in the case and plan for how the matter will progress. A court timetable will be set out following this hearing.

A FDR will take place when all the issues raised in the FDA have been addressed and is a real chance for the parties to try and settle. A judge sitting on the FDR cannot make a binding decision on the parties but can give an indication of how they think the matter will progress which is to try and encourage settlement. A FDR hearing is ‘without prejudice’ which means that any offers or negotiations that take place during this hearing cannot be referred to at a final hearing and the same judge hearing an FDR hearing cannot hear a final hearing.

This is exactly the same as a FDR but you and the other party are paying for it outside of the normal court system. You will get to select a judge and pay them their private fee for sitting on your matter. This can be seen as a good option for many couples as it means you can book the hearing at a time convenient for you and will have the focus of the judge for the full day (rather than a normal court hearing where the judge will be dealing with a number of different matters on a single day). The disadvantage, of course, is that you have to meet the cost.

If the matter cannot be settled, a final hearing will be listed. At this, the judge will hear evidence and make a decision about how your assets should be divided. A final order will be made which both parties must comply with.

If the parties are able to reach an agreement regarding how your finances are divided outside a court hearing, then a consent order will be drafted. This document sets out your agreement in legal terms. This is then submitted to the court for its approval (the court checks to make sure the terms of the order are fair and reasonable). This order will be binding on both parties once made.

The form submitted to the court with a consent order. This form sets out some basic financial disclosure which both parties must provide to the court. It is a legal requirement to provide this and the court will not consider a consent order without a D81 form.

This is an issue raised by one party which must be resolved in order for the whole case to move forward because it impacts how much money is actually being divided up.

A typical example of a preliminary issue is one party asserting the other owns a property but the other party states they do not. If the parties cannot agreed the issue, the court will need to make a determination about it, i.e., they will confirm whether or not the party has an interest in a property and if so, how much.

Sometimes the court needs expert evidence. For example, from a pensions expert or a property valuation. A Single Joint Expert is the name given to the expert selected by the parties and approved by the court to prepare a report on the issue. A Single Joint Expert can be called to give evidence at a final hearing if there is a dispute about their final report.