Indicative Legal Fees and Disbursements for Family and Matrimonial Matters

All our Family Fees are based on the "Standard Work" required to complete such matters, these vary dependent on each matter, Divorce, Financial Remedies, Children Matters etc. Below is a guideline as to what your legal fees and disbursements may look like dependent on the transaction you are looking at instructing as for.

Please note that our Legal Fees based on privately funded work and as such we charge an hourly rate for them, which is set out below and reflects the "Standard Work", we will advise you of any additional costs as and when they arise.

All our quotations are based on an "estimate" as we cannot at the time of quoting know all of the relevant details of the transaction to provide certain fees for disbursements of know if any additional work will be required.

Services offered at the firm:

Time Estimates

Unfortunately, as the work above generally always includes applications to Courts, we cannot give accurate time estimates as the applications are bound by court timings and judicial availability. However, there are average time frames for matters such as Divorce and Financial Remedies and you are looking at 6 to 12 months for applications to be finalised (Divorce has a minimum 6 months to complete due to statutory cooling off periods etc).

Who will undertake your matter:

Estate and Corporate Solicitors have a wealth of expertise in the Firm and each of the Fee Earners have years of experience dealing with all aspects of Family and Matrimonial Law. Our current Fee Earners are:

Our Legal fees and Disbursements are set out as follows:

As noted above, our fees are calculated on an hourly basis, but much like many other solicitors, we have allocated certain rates to certain elements of transactions to allow us to accurately reflect our time spent on files in our fees. Unless otherwise stated, our time is calculated in units of 6, which reflects a price for every 6 minutes spent on the file. Below is an example of the billing rates you will see illustrated on such matters; these are dependent on the level of the fee earner undertaking the work.

Billing Rate for Description of work:

Below are some estimates for the above matters, VAT is charged at 20% where noted:

Divorce and Dissolution of Marriages/Civil Partners:

Legal Fees:

1. Sole Application (No Fault) - £1,500.00 + VAT (additional £250.00 + VAT if application is to be made using Help with Fees)

2. Joint Application (No Fault) - £2,000.00 + VAT

Disbursements:

*other disbursements may become payable and will be notified to you before made*

Financial Remedies (splitting of matrimonial finances and assets):

1. Uncontested (these are generally agreed by a Consent Order that has either been negotiated by solicitors or through mediation) - £1,500.00 + VAT

2. Contested (this means parties are not agreed as to the split of the matrimonial finances, these matters generally include some kind of court involvement, as well as the involvement of mediation services) - these matters will have a starting fee of £3,000.00 + VAT and will increase as the matter progresses at our hourly rates noted above.

**The majority of the time there will be some kind of element Financial Remedies involved with Divorce and Dissolution of Marriages/Civil Partnerships. We treat these as separate matters and therefore have separate charging structures for both because of the work involved.**

Disbursements:

*other disbursements may become payable and will be notified to you before made*

Children's Act applications (subject to office resources and external mediator comments):

1. Applications for Child Arrangement Order (uncontested agreed by consent) - £1,500.00 + VAT.

2. Applications for Child Arrangement Order (contested) - (this means parties are not agreed as to the arrangements for Children, these matters generally include some kind of court involvement, as well as the involvement of mediation services - these matters will have a starting fee of £3,000.00 + VAT and will increase as the matter progresses at our hourly rates noted above.

** Child Arrangements Orders are orders made by the court to determine matters such as who has parental responsibility for a child, where a child should reside, who may have contact with a child and other matters.**

Disbursements:

*other disbursements may become payable and will be notified to you before made*

E & C Estate Agents

E & C Solicitors working hand and hand with E & C Estate Agents