Doing it yourself!

Hi Everyone

Thanks for reading this! I’ve been married for 12 years and have 2 kids. I am in the process of starting “amicable” divorce proceedings. My husband and I have an idea of how we would like to proceed as we only have 2 main assets, the house and his pension and I think we will be able to come to agreement on child/spousal maintenance.

We have both seen solicitors and today the mediator but we are coming up against a wall from both fronts. We both know what we want but we can’t get a straight answer as to how to get our agreement legal (ie enforceable), without spending a fortune on legal costs.

Neither of us have much money and as the pension side of it is so complicated, I am thinking of settling for a higher percent share of the house at it’s future selling time instead??

My question is, where do we go from here? Has anyone done a legally watertight agreement by themselves? Or at least with minimum intervention?

Thanks

Redsky

It's so refreshing to hear that you and your stbx are sorting things out. I think you can get a Consent Order drawn up on this site relatively cheaply. xx

Hi Redsky

My situation is unfortunately not as amicable as yours. We are trying the mediation route and then getting the agreement confirmed by our respective solicitors.

Still not a cheap option but a lot cheaper than just using solicitors.

Good luck, and I hop you can stay amicable.

Steve

Thanks for your reply.

We are trying, but obviously, things can go wrong (hence why I'm here). What is a consent order?

Does it cover both types of maintenance and the house?

Thing is, we were quoted mediation at nearly £300 each per session today.

I'm getting the feeling that what me and hubby want is unrealistic ie, not paying the earth when we know what we want.

But I really don't see why not?

Any suggestions much appriecated.

Thanks

Hi there

Am not seeing what the problem is...if you have agreed there is no reason why your agreement cannot be put into a consent order and that is that (a consent order is the formalising of you agreement by making it into a court order).

However, one of the things that does concern me is that it appears from your post that you havent quite reached agreement yet.

Amanda

Thanks Amanda

You are right, we have no agreement yet as such, but I think we can.

It's just as soon as we mention that to anyone, we come against a wall of jargon that suggests it's not possible. I will investigate the "consent order" way. Do you need to back up consent orders with financial documentation? Are they legally enforceable?

If we don't end up agreeing, we both realise that the solicitors is the only way forward, but we want to avoid that if possible.

Thanks for all your help. x