Issues relevant to family law are among the most sensitive and impactful legal issues that you can face. To navigate the complexities of separation, divorce, child arrangements, and financial disputes, you need expert guidance.
While some families may attempt to resolve matters in an amicable manner, the legal complications and potential long-term consequences often make advice from a family lawyer in Surrey essential.
In this article, you will explore the top situations where you need to seek advice and guidance from lawyers specializing in family law. You will also learn how seeking advice from these lawyers will be helpful to you.
Top Situations Where Consulting Family Lawyers is Essential
Here are the top situations where consultation from family lawyers is important:
- Separation and Divorce:
The breakdown of a marriage is the most emotional and challenging time of your life. While divorce is permitted after a year of separation, the legal process involves a lot of things apart from just parting ways.
Family law advice is essential from the beginning to understand your rights and obligations, whether you are considering separation or are already separated from your partner.
A family lawyer can help you in the following ways:
- Understanding the Legal Process: From the initial filing to final orders, a lawyer can guide you through each step of the divorce process. By doing so, they ensure that all legal requirements are met.
- Negotiate a Separation Agreement: If a couple is not able to reach an amicable agreement, a lawyer can represent them in court, advocating for their client’s position and working towards a resolution. This is especially vital in high-conflict situations.
- Child Custody and Access(Parenting Time and Decision Making):
When children are involved in a separation, their well-being becomes a major concern. The court prioritizes the best interests of the child while making decisions about parenting arrangements.
This includes both decision-making responsibilities of parents, such as custody, child’s health, education, and various other things, along with parenting time, i.e., the time a child spends with each parent.
Consulting a family lawyer during such a situation is helpful in the following ways:
- Developing a Comprehensive Parenting Plan: This plan will describe how parents will share responsibilities, such as schedules of parenting time, holiday arrangements, and communication protocols. A lawyer will help you draft a plan that serves the child’s best interests while protecting your parental rights.
- Address Complicated Issues: Situations involving parental alienation, relocation of a parent, or concerns about a parent’s mental health or substance abuse require specialized legal expertise. A lawyer can help you gather evidence and present a strong case to the court.
- Modify Existing Orders: If circumstances change significantly(a new job, a child’s changing needs, for instance), a lawyer can help you assist in applying to the court to modify existing custody or access orders.
- Handle Supervised Access: In cases with safety concerns, a lawyer can help you establish supervised access arrangements to ensure the child’s safety during visits with a parent.
- Child Support:
Both parents have a legal obligation to support their children financially, irrespective of their marital status or living arrangements. Child support is calculated based on the federal child support guidelines, taking into account the income of the parent paying for it and the number of children.
In such a situation, family law advice is crucial for:
- Accurate Calculation: A lawyer can ensure that child support is calculated correctly based on the guidelines, considering all sources of income and any special expenses like childcare, medical expenses, and post-secondary education.
- Enforcement of Orders: If child support payments are not being made, a lawyer can initiate enforcement measures through the court or various other resources.
- Variations: If there is a material change in circumstances, like a significant change in income, a child turning 18, etc., a lawyer can help you apply to alter the existing child support orders.
- High-Income Earners: For parents with high incomes, the application of the child support guidelines can be more complex. Furthermore, a lawyer can help you navigate these intricacies.
- Alimony(Spousal Support):
Spousal support is the financial assistance paid by one spouse to the other after separation or divorce. Unlike child support, spousal support is not automatic and depends on factors like the length of the relationship, the roles played during the marriage, and the financial needs and means of each spouse.
A family lawyer can help you in the following ways:
- Determine Entitled Alimony Amount: Assess whether you are entitled to spousal support or if you have an obligation to pay it, as per the legal principles of compensatory, non-compensatory, or contractual support.
- Calculate Amount and Duration: While the spousal support advisory guidelines offer a framework, a lawyer can help you negotiate or litigate the specific amount and duration of support as per your unique financial circumstances.
- Address Complex Financial Situations: If one or both spouses have complex financial structures like self-employment income, business interests, or significant investments, a lawyer can help you ensure proper disclosure and a fair assessment of income for support purposes.
- Negotiate Lump Sum Vs Periodic Payments: A lawyer can advise on the pros and cons of different payment structures for spousal support.
- Property Division:
Upon separation, married couples are subjected to an equalization of net family property. This implies that the increase in each spouse’s net worth during the marriage is calculated, and the spouse with the higher net family property makes an equalization payment to the other.
Common-law partners do not have the same automatic property rights, but may have claims based on trust principles or unjust enrichment.
In such situations, the family lawyer will help you identify and value assets and debts. They will also help you understand excluded property, deal with the matrimonial home, and negotiate or litigate property division.
To Summarize
Family law is often an emotionally-charged area with a lot of elements. While the temptation to resolve matters without legal intervention may be strong, the complexities of the law, the long-term implications of decisions, and the potential for conflict underscore why professional family law advice is important. This is where you need to consult a family lawyer to avoid further complications during these situations.