A skilled lawyer such as our Mark Thomson is able to bring his 35 year experience and creative legal thinking into a devasting demolition of the opponent’s case. Read our client’s story…
[1] our client had worked hard and saved a pension pot of over £900,000 and was looking forward to a well deserved retirement with a good pension income allowing him to enjoy his retirement years.
[2] Unfortunately, his wife had a history of exorbitant living. She had always had a well paid job but prioritized extravagant living over saving in the form of a pension.
[3] When the marriage broke down, the wife claimed 50% of the pension – £450,000. So, rather than over the years saving for a good retirement pension, she wanted easy street and to grab half our client’s pension.
[4] The law in this country states the starting point when splitting finances on divorce is a 50/50 division of marital assets.
[5] Could the wife’s luxurious lifestyle which was beyond the means of her disposable income be used as an argument the default 50/50 starting point should be reduced to reflect the wife’s financial misconduct? The wife treated our client as a Golden Goose. A Golden Goose that kept on laying golden eggs year after year but was still not enough for her.
[6] The difficulty in using such a strategy is that ‘conduct’ listed as a factor to be taken into account in the Matrimonial Causes Act has been restricted by the courts as only applying where the conduct is gross and of the very worst kind. Think of extreme violence such as attempted murder as an example where the courts have reduced a financial award based on conduct.
7] Clearly, conduct could not be used in our client’s case in the conventional sense. But Mark Thomson made a strategic decision to avoid pleading ‘conduct’, and to argue financial mismanagement and an irresponsible wasting of her income such that she put lavish living over responsible saving in the form of building up a pension. In effect the conduct argument was brought into the case via a legal Trojan Horse. The ‘horse’ from the outside did not appear to be ‘conduct’ – but inside the horse were allegations of ‘conduct’ that smelt like an open sewer.
[8] Paying a leading divorce lawyer such as Mark sufficient amounts to allow him to devise and put into play a reasoned and effective strategy can pay off.
[9] Our client paid over £12,500 in fees but he saved £450,000.
[10] The wife got nil/zilch/sweet FA from our client’s pension. A victory Mark is quite rightly very proud off.
