Amanda deals with all aspects of family matters, which includes divorce issues affecting medium to high net worth individuals, Private Law Children Act applications including those to remove from the jurisdiction, and pre-nuptial agreements.
She also deals with Cohabitation Disputes, Cohabitation Agreements, Trust of Land Act claims seeking settlement for unmarried couples, and financial claims for children including claims under Schedule 1 of the Children Act seeking housing and other capital resources necessary to maintain the children of unmarried couples.
Amanda is also an expert in Contentious Trust and Probate work: including Inheritance Act claims, claims seeking to invalidate wills, actions seeking to remove Trustees, disputes between Trustees, disputes between Trustees and Beneficiaries and disputes between Trustees and Third Parties.
Having visited this subject on several occasions, the Government has now said that they plan to push ahead with the introduction of new laws which will give absent fathers (or indeed mothers) the right to spend time with their children. The subject has been one of extensive debate over recent months and this proposed step… Learn more
The Child Support Act 1991 provides for the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Committee (CMEC) to be able to secure the non-payer being committed to prison for his or her failure to make the payments required of him/her. The cases being referred for this process have increased significantly over the past five or six years, no… Learn more
In the past it would have been fair to say that if a wife had enjoyed a certain lifestyle she could expect that to continue after divorce if it was affordable. The lifestyle enjoyed during a marriage is one of several specific factors which the court must take into consideration when assessing what represents a… Learn more
I’ve recently written a couple of articles on a couple of very important issues concerning shared parenting and child care. The first one, published in the Family Law Journal, looks at the Government’s response to the recommendation made by the Family Justice Review panel that there should not be a presumption of shared parenting after… Learn more
I have recently written an article on the possible introduction of ‘no-fault’ divorces, which was published in The Lawyer magazine. Sir Nicholas Wall, the country’s most senior family law judge, has argued that the courts should no longer have to allocate blame for the failure of a marriage. Certainly, ‘no-fault’ divorces would help to maintain… Learn more
I have recently written an article for the journal Family Law Online on an interesting case which was recently heard at the Court of Appeal. To read the article, please click here. The case concerns the contact arrangements for a two-year old boy who has a gay father and a lesbian mother, who lives with her… Learn more
I have recently written an article on parental rights, which was published on the Family Law website. Please click here to read it. The article looks at both the Government’s recent announcement that it intends to compel the courts to ensure that each parent is able to see their children regularly (or even equally) following… Learn more
There has been a lot of newspaper coverage recently on the issue of divorce – or “silver separations” as they’ve been dubbed - amongst couples in their 60s. Whilst the number of divorces in the UK is generally on the decrease, divorces amongst the over 60s is on the rise. But why? I recently had an article published on… Learn more
Nicholas Mostyn has handed down judgment in what is believed to be the first divorce case involving the distribution of a National Lottery windfall. The couple had been married for over 25 years and had two adult children. Some years ago the wife had a windfall of some £500,000 on the lottery. She used part of these funds… Learn more
The European Commission has confirmed that the new EU-wide rules on maintenance became effective on 18 June 2011. The new rules set up an EU-wide system for facilitating the recovery of maintenance payments when one parent lives abroad and refuses to provide financial help to the child(ren) and/or the former spouse. However, the definition of… Learn more