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Relationship breakdown is something everyone goes through at some point in their life, but everyone experiences it differently. If you have decided to dissolve your civil partnership, we can offer you sensitive, tailored advice to help you sort out the legal aspects and get your life back on track.
At Johnson Astills, our civil partnership dissolution solicitors are happy to provide expert advice and professional support to individuals going through dissolution.
Based in Loughborough and Leicester, our clients come to us from across Leicestershire and the wider Midlands area for our expertise and friendly, approachable family law service.
Our family law team can help you with every aspect of your civil partnership dissolution, including financial arrangements and arrangements for children.
We focus on finding constructive solutions to complex and emotionally challenging issues out of court wherever possible, to save you time, expense and unnecessary stress. Several of our team are members of Resolution, an organisation specifically devoted to finding harmonious family law solutions.
Where appropriate we can help you access forms of Alternative Dispute Resolution such as collaborative law to help you resolve the trickier parts of your dissolution.
For further information please get in touch with our family law team so we can assess your case and offer useful guidance. You can give us a call at your local branch in Leicester or Loughborough or fill in our online enquiry form for a quick response.
There is a clear process to follow if you intend to apply for a civil partnership dissolution.
You will need to submit a divorce application online as either a sole or joint applicant, which must include a ‘statement of irretrievable breakdown’ to confirm that their relationship is over (no other reasons are needed).
We can assist you with these administrative procedures and ensure that all the documentation is filled out accurately and submitted in a timely fashion.
You will need to agree on the division of finances separate to the actual process of dissolving your civil partnership. There are multiple ways you can do this:
Court should only be used as a last resort and in our experience, it is usually possible to come to an agreement without having to apply for a Financial Order from court.
We can also help you apply to court to turn your financial agreement into a legally binding Consent Order so, if your ex-partner does not stick to its terms, you can apply to court to enforce it.
Like financial arrangements, decisions about your children need to be made parallel to the administrative dissolution process. These can be agreed informally or using alternative dispute resolution such as mediation or collaborative law.
Matters you will need to agree may include:
If you are able to come to an agreement out of court, we can later apply to turn it into a legally binding Consent Order.
If you cannot agree at all, we can help you apply to court for a range of children related court orders, including:
We are members of the Law Society Family Law Advanced Accreditation scheme for our expertise in family law matters, including matters involving complex finances such as businesses and international property. Emma Mitchell is an accredited specialist for her work with finances and children.
We are members of the Children Law Accreditation scheme, reflecting our skills in representing both adults and children in child law proceedings. Amongst our family law team, Halina Patecka and Emma Stanbanks are accredited specialists for their work representing children.
We are recognised for our excellent standards of client care and legal practice management with the Lexcel Accreditation.
Emma Mitchell and Victoria Chamberlain are members of Resolution. Emma is also a qualified collaborative lawyer and can support you through matters such as financial settlement negotiations and making arrangements for children.
As of 2022, you can now get a ‘no-fault’ civil partnership dissolution where there is no need to give a reason for the dissolution, other than ‘the irretrievable breakdown of your relationship’ – this makes the process a lot less contentious and stressful than it was in previous years.
You must have been in a civil partnership for more than one year before you can make an application for a dissolution.
If the court is satisfied that the civil partnership has broken down irretrievably, the court will issue a conditional order to confirm there is no reason not to grant the dissolution, before a final order that confirms the dissolution.
If the dissolution process is straightforward and there are no unexpected administrative delays, it should take a minimum of 6 months to finalise. This is due to the minimum waiting periods for both the conditional order and final order.
We can offer new qualifying family law clients a fixed fee initial consultation to discuss your matter at length and the steps you can take to resolve your dissolution as positively as possible. At this meeting we will also discuss our flexible fee structures so you can make an informed decision about whether to proceed with us.
In many cases, we are able to quote fixed fees so that you know exactly how much your dissolution will cost from beginning to end.
To set up your initial consultation, please get in touch.
As well as our civil partnership dissolution advice, we can also help you with associated matters to help you get your life back on track, such as:
For further information please get in touch with our family law team so we can assess your case and offer useful guidance. You can give us a call at your local branch in Leicester or Loughborough or fill in our online enquiry form for a quick response.
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