Get the Advice You Need From an Experienced Solicitor

If you’re faced with a confusing and complicated legal issue, it’s imperative that you ensure your rights are always protected and that you are being represented to the very best possible standard. Not doing so can have a significant and lasting impact on your life and the life of your family.

However, making sure that you employ the right team of solicitors for the right situation can be equally as complex. When those legal issues involve family members - like divorce proceedings and writing a will - it’s even more important to make sure that the lawyer is experienced in this field. Family law can be a sensitive subject, so these situations must be dealt with by an experienced team with a track record of working with families delicately.

Here we give you just some of the ways that an experienced law firm can advise you through complicated family law proceedings.

Wills and Probate

Discussing issues around wills and probate can be one of the more uncomfortable legal discussions to have. However, they’re also some of the most important.

Writing a will is one of the most crucial legal tasks you are ever likely to do. Passing away without the legal protection of a will can cause significant stress and hardship on those that you leave behind.

When someone passes away without one, it means that they die intestate. This situation triggers intestacy laws which will determine how an estate is distributed amongst beneficiaries. This includes property, bank accounts and any other assets that are left behind.

The rules of intestacy are complex and are decided by the nature of the relationship to the deceased. For example, only married or civil partners can inherit under rules of intestacy; it does not account for partners who were never married, regardless of the length of time they were together. Children and grandchildren also inherit under intestacy rules, but the amount depends on the size of the estate, the children’s ages and other parameters.

If a family member or close friend sits outside of these parameters when someone passes away, then they may be disinherited even if they were much closer to the deceased. This means that it’s incredibly important to write a will and to do so with the advice of a solicitor to ensure that it is valid. If a will is invalid - which can happen simply if you have signed the document without a witness present - then this will also leave the deceased intestate.

Similarly with probate - the legal mechanism for distributing a deceased person’s estate - a solicitor can help you navigate this process. Sometimes probates are simple and can be performed without the help of a lawyer, however, there are some situations where it’s advisable to hire a professional probate solicitor. If the deceased has died intestate, then this can make things far more complicated, as discussed previously, and a solicitor should be called. Also, if the deceased had large assets, had invested assets overseas, is bankrupt, or there are beneficiaries who may look to make a claim on the estate, then it’s advisable to get guidance from a professional.

These legal situations are often highly sensitive and can cause a rift between families if handled indelicately. A professional solicitor will have experience here and will be able to ensure that your interests are protected as their client. When family and grief is involved, hire a solicitor to take care of those more sterile matters so that you can get on with mourning.

Getting Separated? Make Sure You Hire a Divorce Lawyer to Advise You on Family Law

Another area of family law that can be equally as emotional as dealing with the legal ramifications of a loved one’s passing, is when a married couple separate. Understandably during this process, there are many emotional hurdles to jump. In particular, if a couple has children, a lot of assets that must be split or the separation was not amicable, it’s certainly advisable to employ the services of a divorce lawyer to make sure that the process remains professional.

A divorce is regularly listed as one of the most stressful experiences that any of us can go through in life and throwing legal matters into that can only make things worse. By hiring an experienced divorce lawyer to look after your interests and to take care of all the necessary admin, this can help to drastically reduce the stress associated with it.

From start to finish, a divorce solicitor will be able to enact all the relevant procedures. This starts with clarifying the grounds for divorce, which falls under either adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion, or being separated for either two years with the consent of the partner or 5 years without and then applying to a court.

Once the divorce application has been supplied, the court will send a copy of the petition to the spouse with an acknowledgement of service that they then need to fill and return within a week.

Following this, a Decree Nisi must be applied for, which is a procedure that states that the court can see no reason why the divorce should not go ahead. Once that has passed, an application for a decree absolute can be made. This is the final step in the process and it is what legally ratifies a divorce and officially ends the marriage.

However, in between all of these steps is where you will need a lawyer the most, as it is within these steps that agreements must be made regarding any assets, property and children. This can, understandably, be a very delicate arrangement to navigate and should be done with the support and advice of a lawyer.

If the two partners going through a divorce can agree on financial settlements, then there is often no reason to go to court over it, although you should consult a lawyer to make these agreements legally binding. However, unfortunately, this is often not the case. If you cannot agree on the dividing of finances, then a lawyer will be able to help protect your own interests. Before taking proceedings to court, you will also have to see a mediator who can help you to agree on how assets should be split. If there are still disagreements after this then the case will go to court and, at this point, it’s imperative to have a lawyer in your corner to protect your rights and interests throughout the case.

Even more delicate is how the custody of a child is decided throughout a divorce proceeding. Similarly to the division of assets, if both parties agree then there is little or no need for a case to be brought to court, but it’s when the partners do not agree that a lawyer should be employed.

Again, the parents will need to prove that they’ve worked with a mediator to try and resolve the issue, but if that doesn’t work then the case will be taken to court. This is incredibly delicate and an experienced lawyer will be able to advise on the best course of action here and apply for the relevant court orders.

Who We Are

If you need the services of solicitors in Torquay, Torbay, Newton Abbot and South Devon, then look no further than Almy & Thomas. Established in 1920, we have a team of highly trained and professional solicitors to help you make sense of complicated legal matters. We put our clients at the centre of everything we do and always make sure that our legal solution fits the requirement of each client.

Before you decide whether we can help you with your problem, we provide a free 30 minute consultation to discuss your concerns in private and with no obligations.