Family law solicitors in Sutton Coldfield

People arrive worried about the divorce and leave realising the divorce was the simple part. Ending a marriage is now a largely administrative process done online. Working out what happens to a house, two pensions, a business, an inheritance and thirty years of joint decisions is not.

In Sutton Coldfield that second question tends to be a bigger one than it is elsewhere in the region. More of our clients here have assets that need genuine valuation rather than a quick look: company shareholdings, rental property, share schemes, defined benefit pensions, money that came from parents and was never quite disentangled.

We advise on financial settlements, divorce and separation, arrangements for children, disputes between unmarried couples and prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, for clients across Sutton Coldfield, Mere Green, Four Oaks, Little Aston, Streetly, Boldmere, Wylde Green, Walmley and the north Birmingham suburbs.

If you are not sure whether something counts, ask. That is the question, not a preliminary to it.

Financial settlements and property division

The largest part of our Sutton Coldfield work. Identifying everything that is in the pot, valuing it honestly and dividing it in a way a court would recognise as fair. That includes pensions, which are routinely undervalued by people trying to be reasonable, and business interests, where the question is often less about the headline valuation and more about how anyone extracts money from it without wrecking the business. Whatever you agree needs turning into a court order. More on financial settlements.

Divorce and separation

No blame, no defending and no hearing unless something is contested. The application is made online, and a straightforward divorce usually takes at least seven to eight months. Our advice for almost everyone is not to rush to the final order, because finalising the divorce before the finances are resolved can affect pension rights and other entitlements in ways that are difficult to undo. More on divorce and separation.

Arrangements for children

Living arrangements, time with each parent, schooling, holidays and relocation. Sutton Coldfield throws up a particular version of this: parents whose work involves long hours, travel or shift patterns, where a neat alternate-weekends arrangement does not fit real life. Those need building properly rather than borrowing from a template, and they need to survive contact with a real diary. More on arrangements for children.

Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements

We are asked about these more often at Sutton Coldfield than at any other office, usually by people marrying again, by parents wanting to protect what they intend to pass to children from a first marriage, and by families where a business or inherited property is involved. Properly made means both sides independently advised, full disclosure on both sides and signing in good time before the wedding rather than the week before. More on prenuptial and post-nuptial agreements.

Separating without having married

No common law marriage exists, and long cohabitation gives you no automatic share of a partner's property or any maintenance for yourself. Where one partner owns the home and the other contributed to it, or gave up work, or was promised a share, there may be a claim, but it is harder to run and less predictable than a divorce settlement. More on separating from an unmarried partner.

Our office is at 316-318 Lichfield Road at Mere Green, which puts us within easy reach of Four Oaks, Little Aston, Streetly, Boldmere, Wylde Green, Walmley and the northern edge of Birmingham. Mere Green is a straightforward place to get to and to park near, and we see clients by appointment. Opening hours, directions and the people based there are on the page for our Sutton Coldfield office.

The Royal Town has a distinctive asset profile and it shapes the work. Long marriages, high property values, a concentration of senior professionals and business owners and a noticeable amount of family money passed down a generation. In practice that means the argument in a Sutton Coldfield settlement is less often about how to split a modest pot and more often about what belongs in the pot at all.

Inherited property, assets built up before the marriage and money held in a business are all capable of being treated differently from ordinary matrimonial property. None of that is automatic, though, and none of it survives being mixed in carelessly over twenty years. An inheritance kept in its own account has a far stronger argument attached to it than the same sum spent on an extension.

There is also a limit worth knowing about. However well founded an argument that something is non-matrimonial, it gives way where the matrimonial assets are not enough to meet both parties' needs. Anyone who has been told their inheritance is untouchable has been told something that is true only some of the time.