I'm John, 58 years of age and am always annoyed when I hear how much money has been wasted on solicitors during a divorce.
My experience and that of several friends who discussed theirs with me are all similar. Solicitors happy to bat letters backwards and forwards without making any progress and happy to get waste time on total irrelevant rubbish. 3 of my friends had combined costs (with their partners costs) of over £100k!! How the hell does that happen?
I know there can be some to-ing and fro-ing getting to realistic
form E disclosure but it shouldn't cost that much. After that, get a deal done. Your solicitor has heard all the questions a 1000 times before but strangely can;t remember the answers! They had better write to the other side and low and behold they can! Needless to say, vice versa applies.
During my divorce I could always tell when the ex had been to see her solicitor, our attempts to protect the children from the nastiness of it all went out the window and she raged. I'm sure they deliberately inflamed the situation to make agreeing a deal almost impossible.
It took over 3 years to reach agreement on the courtroom steps. I moved my offer upwards by £10000 and she brought hers down by about £500,000.
For the previous 3 years, her solicitors were quite happy to have as part of her demands that the house was signed over to her. The only slight hitch with that demand is that it belonged to my Mother! We lived in it rent free. I wonder if her solicitors would take that up on a "no win no fee" basis? It is the same as me walking into a solicitor and saying I'd like them to make a case for my neighbour giving me their house!
The other part of her demand was for £150k in cash that simply didn't exist.
Divorce is the worst game of cards you play in your life. You fan your cards out face up and then let someone else discuss an agreement on your behalf. Someone who has no interest in concluding the negotiation quickly and has "earmarked" 10% of the pot for themselves.
Saw an old article from a newspaper the on-line the other day were a couple who were worth around £3m when they started proceedings did over £900,000 on legals between them. The Judge gave both sides legal representation a decent rebuke in the article and said it was utterly unbelievable and there should be some controls put in place but guess what, too late, they've had your money.
Anyway, it's late in the day, put it is my personal ambition to derail this gravy train!
Look forward to chatting to anyone who fancies it.
Regards,
John
