High Net Worth Divorce In England And Wales

porce is difficult enough without complex finances added into the mix. When your marriage involves a family business, significant property, or wealth spread across more than one country, the stakes — and the risk of getting things wrong — are higher. We help clients navigate high net worth porce with the care, discretion and expertise this kind of case demands, working alongside forensic accountants, pension experts and valuation specialists to protect what matters to you.

This guide walks through the areas that come up most often in high net worth cases — from business assets and property portfolios to pensions, overseas wealth, and what to do if you’re worried a spouse isn’t being honest about their finances.

Key points

• High net worth porce covers cases involving business interests, multiple properties, significant pensions, international assets, or wealth held in trusts — complexity matters more than a single figure
• Full financial disclosure is a legal duty covering everything you and your spouse hold, wherever in the world it’s located
• Business assets, property portfolios, and pensions each require specialist valuation — a headline figure rarely tells the full story
• If assets are at risk of being hidden or moved, the court has powers to intervene, including freezing orders, but time-sensitive action matters
• Not every case needs to go to court — mediation, collaborative practice, and arbitration all offer alternative routes for couples willing to work constructively
• Early legal advice shapes outcomes across every stage, from disclosure and valuation through to choosing the right process for resolving things

What counts as a high net worth porce?

There’s no fixed legal threshold that makes a porce “high net worth.” As a general guide, cases involving £1 million or more in combined assets are often considered to fall into this category — but that’s a loose reference point, not a rule written in stone. What matters isn’t a single number, but the shape of your finances, and how much care they need to unpick fairly.

If your marriage involves a family business, a share portfolio, property in more than one country, or a pension worth six figures, you’re likely looking at a high net worth porce, regardless of exactly where the total lands. The same is true if your wealth is harder to pin down: assets held in a trust, shares that are difficult to value, or income that varies year to year. What connects these cases isn’t the total figure. It’s the complexity — and the risk of getting it wrong if that complexity isn’t handled properly.

We see this complexity most often in a handful of areas:

• Business interests. Shareholdings, directorships, or a family company that’s grown alongside the marriage.
• Property. Multiple homes, buy-to-let portfolios, or property held overseas.
• Pensions. Once a pension fund passes around £100,000, we’d usually commission a Pension on porce Expert (PODE) report to establish its true value and how fairly it should be split.
• International connections. Assets, income, or family ties in more than one country — which can raise real questions about which country’s courts should deal with your case.
• Trusts and less conventional assets. Wealth that isn’t sitting in a bank account is often the hardest to value and the easiest to overlook.

We work with forensic accountants, pension experts, and valuation specialists to make sure nothing gets missed and nothing gets undervalued. That’s not a box-ticking exercise — in cases like these, an inaccurate valuation or an overlooked asset can cost you far more than the fee for getting proper advice.

If any of this sounds like your situation, it’s worth getting advice early. The decisions you make in the first few weeks — about disclosure, about strategy, about which options are open to you — tend to shape everything that follows.

Key points

• There’s no fixed legal threshold for what makes a porce “high net worth” — combined assets of £1 million or more are often used as a general reference point, though it’s not a fixed rule
• Complexity often matters more than the total figure — business assets, multi-property portfolios, significant pensions, and international connections are common features
• Pension funds over roughly £100,000 usually warrant a specialist PODE report
• We routinely work with forensic accountants and valuation experts to verify complex assets
• Early advice matters — decisions made at the outset often shape the whole case

Related pages

• porce, dissolution & separation
• High-Value Pensions in porce: What You Need to Know

Overseas and international assets

If your wealth extends beyond the UK, whether that’s a holiday home abroad, an offshore account, or shares in an international business, your porce is likely to be more complex than a typical case. The good news is that courts in England and Wales don’t ignore assets simply because they sit outside the jurisdiction. The starting point is that everything counts, wherever in the world it’s held.

An overseas asset is anything located outside England and Wales, or held under another country’s laws. Beyond the obvious example of a second home abroad, this can include:

• Holiday homes and residential property
• Commercial property and buy-to-let investments
• Overseas bank and savings accounts
• International investment portfolios and shareholdings
• Foreign business interests or trusts

Also read: How to value a business in porce proceedings?

Where an asset is located doesn’t automatically decide whether it’s included in your settlement. What matters is your overall financial picture, and whether taking that asset into account is necessary to reach a fair outcome. If your wealth structure is complex, working out the full extent of what you (and your spouse) hold overseas is often one of the first jobs we do.

Do you have to disclose overseas assets?

In most cases, yes. If your porce proceedings are in England and Wales, you and your spouse both have a legal duty to provide full and frank financial disclosure — and that duty covers assets held anywhere in the world, not just in the UK.

This disclosure gives everyone, including the court, a complete and accurate financial picture to work from. Property, investments, offshore accounts, business and trust interests abroad should all be disclosed alongside anything held in the UK. When it comes to piding what you have, the court looks at things like your financial needs, the standard of living during the marriage, how long you were together, each person’s contributions, and the welfare of any children — not simply where an asset happens to sit on a map.

If a spouse deliberately conceals foreign property, offshore investments or overseas bank accounts, the consequences can be serious. The court can draw adverse inferences, order costs against them, or in some cases set aside a settlement altogether if it was reached without full disclosure. If you’re worried your spouse might be hiding money overseas, it’s worth knowing that spouses attempting to hide wealth abroad often show similar warning signs to those seen in domestic non-disclosure cases:

• Unusual transfers
• Unexplained withdrawals
• Accounts held in someone else’s name

Key points

• Overseas assets must generally be disclosed in the same way as UK assets — location alone doesn’t exclude them
• The court considers your overall financial circumstances, not just where an asset is held
• Deliberately concealing overseas wealth can lead to adverse inferences, costs orders, or a settlement being set aside
• Warning signs of hidden overseas wealth often mirror those seen in domestic non-disclosure cases

Related articles

• piding investments, pensions & savings during porce
• How to value a business in porce proceedings?
• Hidden assets in porce: How to trace and the Court’s approach
• Hidden assets and financial misconduct: Signs your spouse is hiding money

Property portfolios

Property is often one of the most complex parts of a high net worth portfolio to pide, whether that’s the family home, a set of buy-to-let investments, or property held across several countries. The court’s powers here come from the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, and there’s no set formula for splitting a portfolio. Instead, the court looks at the case as a whole, guided by the principles of needs, sharing, and compensation, with fairness as the ultimate goal.

In our experience, the issues that come up most often in these cases are accurate disclosure, reliable valuations, liquidity, tax, mortgage capacity, and whether part of the portfolio should be treated as non-matrimonial. We recently advised on a case involving a property portfolio with holdings in both England and Europe — the kind of situation where getting early, coordinated advice across jurisdictions made a real difference to how smoothly things progressed.

Disclosure and valuation

Full and frank disclosure is the starting point for working out what’s actually in the matrimonial pot. That means a clear picture of everything you and your spouse hold — personally, jointly, through companies, trusts, or other structures — including anything held in a different jurisdiction. If a spouse doesn’t properly disclose their property interests, it can undermine negotiations and lead to adverse inferences, costs orders, or worse.

Each property is normally valued on a current open-market basis, with mortgage balances and estimated sale costs deducted to work out the real net equity. In contested cases, a single joint expert — usually a chartered surveyor — is often instructed to keep the process fair and proportionate. The court may also draw a distinction between wealth built up during the marriage and assets brought into it, inherited, or gifted — though this kind of property isn’t automatically excluded, particularly where it’s needed to meet housing needs or has become mixed in with family finances.

How portfolios tend to get pided

There’s a strong starting presumption that assets built up during the marriage are shared equally, though there are often good reasons to move away from that. In practice, portfolios are rarely split property-by-property. Instead, we usually start by establishing the total net value, then look at how that value can be pided in a way that’s fair, workable, and realistic to put into practice:

Selling some or all of the properties and piding the proceeds — a clean approach, but one that needs careful thought around timing, market conditions and tax
Offsetting, where one spouse keeps more of the portfolio and the other receives pensions, investments, or business interests of equivalent value
Transfer and buyout, where a property moves to one spouse in exchange for a lump sum, provided that’s actually achievable given mortgage capacity and available cash
Property adjustment orders, which allow the court to transfer, settle or vary property arrangements — often the mechanism that reorganises a portfolio as part of the final outcome

What else can complicate things?

A few issues come up again and again in these cases. Tax is one — disposing of or transferring property can trigger Capital Gains Tax, Stamp Duty Land Tax, or other liabilities, particularly where properties sit inside companies or investment structures, so specialist tax advice is usually essential before anything is finalised. Mortgages are another: you can’t simply be released from a joint mortgage without the lender’s agreement, and whoever’s keeping a property will usually need to show they can refinance it in their own name.

Liquidity matters too. A portfolio might look substantial on paper but be genuinely difficult to turn into cash quickly, especially once you factor in rental income, void periods, and maintenance costs. And where the family home is part of the picture and there are children still living there, the court may delay a sale until a defined point in the future — an arrangement that needs to be drafted carefully so everyone knows exactly when and how that sale will happen.

Making the agreement binding

Whatever you agree needs to be recorded in a financial consent order and approved by the court — an informal agreement between you and your spouse isn’t enforceable in the same way. A well-drafted order will cover the sale or transfer of property, mortgage release, indemnities, tax provisions, and what happens if a sale or refinance doesn’t go to plan. For high-value portfolios especially, getting this drafting right is what keeps a settlement workable in practice, not just fair on paper.

Key points

• There’s no fixed formula for piding a property portfolio — the court applies needs, sharing and compensation principles to reach a fair outcome
• Full disclosure and reliable, up-to-date valuations are the foundation of any settlement
• Common pision methods include sale, offsetting, transfer and buyout, and court-ordered property adjustment
• Tax, mortgage capacity, and liquidity all need careful thought before any settlement is agreed
• A settlement only becomes enforceable once it’s recorded in a court-approved consent order

Related articles

• Financial Settlement in porce or Dissolution: Definitions, Processes, Tips, and FAQs
• How to value a business in porce proceedings?
• piding investments, pensions & savings during porce
• Hidden assets and financial misconduct: Signs your spouse is hiding money
• Hidden assets in porce: How to trace and the Court’s approach to undisclosed wealth

Investments, pensions and savings

Pensions have a way of getting overlooked in porce that other assets don’t. They’re tied to years of work, they don’t have an obvious “sale price,” and it’s easy to assume they’ll simply stay with whoever built them up — but in England and Wales, that’s not how the law treats them. There’s no fixed formula for piding investments, savings or pensions. The court’s job is to reach a fair outcome based on your specific circumstances, which means understanding how these assets are identified, valued and pided is central to getting a settlement that actually reflects both parties’ needs.

As with everything else in this guide, transparency is the starting point. Both of you need to disclose all savings, pensions and investments worldwide, whether held inpidually or jointly — without that, there’s no way to identify the full “pot” or pide it fairly.

What counts as investments and savings?

This category covers a wide range of financial products, generally more liquid than pensions but varying a lot in complexity and risk:

• Cash savings in bank or building society accounts
• ISAs, including cash ISAs and stocks and shares ISAs
• Stocks, shares and managed investment portfolios
• Bonds and structured financial products
• Cryptocurrency and other alternative investments

Even where these are held in one person’s sole name, or overseas, they’re not automatically excluded — the court looks at your overall financial position to decide whether they should form part of the matrimonial pot.

Are pensions included in a settlement?

Yes — pensions are always part of the picture when the court works out a fair settlement, though that doesn’t mean they’re automatically split equally or looked at in isolation. They sit alongside your other assets: property, savings, investments, business interests, and each person’s needs going forward. The court weighs the value of each pension, the length of the marriage, financial needs, ages, other available assets, and the welfare of any children.

For high net worth couples especially, pension wealth can form a genuinely significant part of the overall asset pool — overlooking it can lead to an outcome that looks fair on paper but isn’t once retirement provision is properly accounted for.

How pensions are valued

Working out what a pension is actually worth is rarely as simple as reading the number on the latest statement. Different types of scheme behave very differently, and the figure a scheme quotes doesn’t always reflect its true value:

One of the first figures used is the Cash Equivalent Transfer Value (CETV), which estimates the value of the benefits — a useful starting point, but not always the full picture, particularly for defined benefit schemes. Where pensions are especially valuable or complex, we’d normally recommend a report from a qualified actuary early on, so pension wealth is properly weighed alongside everything else before any settlement is negotiated.

How these assets can be pided

The right method depends on what you’re dealing with and your wider financial circumstances.

For investments and savings:

• Offsetting — one of you keeps the investments or savings, the other receives equivalent value elsewhere, often helping achieve a cleaner break
• Liquidation — investments are sold and the proceeds pided, straightforward but sometimes with tax and transaction costs
• Transfer — investments move from one party to the other intact, which can require coordination with the relevant institution

For pensions specifically:

• Pension sharing orders — a percentage of one person’s pension transfers into a new pension in the other’s name at the time of porce, giving each of you independent retirement provision and a genuine clean break (there are fees for schemes to administer this)
• Pension attachment orders — part of a pension’s benefits are paid to the former spouse once the pension comes into payment, though the pension itself stays in the original owner’s name, offering less financial independence
• Pension offsetting — one person keeps their pension while the other receives more of a different asset, though comparing pension wealth to other assets isn’t always straightforward given the differences in liquidity and tax treatment

Where pensions are just one part of a wider portfolio, decisions shouldn’t be made in isolation — you might prefer to keep a valuable pension while your ex-spouse takes a larger share of property or investments instead, and understanding the long-term impact of that trade-off matters more than it might first appear.

Disclosure, tax, and getting it right

Disclosure duties are ongoing throughout proceedings, not a one-off exercise, and cover everything worldwide, whether held jointly or inpidually. Where there’s a concern that assets haven’t been disclosed, the court has real powers to investigate, and non-disclosure — deliberate or not — can lead to adverse inferences, costs penalties, or a settlement being set aside later on.

Tax is also worth real attention. Capital Gains Tax can apply when investments are sold or transferred, and the timing of a transfer between spouses can affect whether tax is due at all. Pension transfers and offsets carry their own tax considerations too. Given the potential complexity, we’d usually recommend both legal and financial advice together, so tax consequences are properly understood before anything is agreed.

Key points

• Investments, savings and pensions are all part of the matrimonial pot, regardless of whose name they’re held in
• Pension valuations often need specialist input — the headline figure on a statement rarely tells the full story
• Common methods include offsetting, liquidation or transfer for investments, and sharing, attachment, or offsetting for pensions
• Ongoing, worldwide disclosure is a legal duty, and non-disclosure carries real consequences
• Tax treatment can materially affect what a settlement is actually worth in practice

Related articles

• Hidden assets in porce: How to trace and the Court’s approach to undisclosed wealth
• Hidden assets and financial misconduct: Signs your spouse is hiding money
• How to value a business in porce proceedings?
• Financial Settlement in porce or Dissolution: Definitions, Processes, Tips, and FAQs

Hidden assets

Not every porce involves suspicion, but it’s a real concern for some couples — particularly where wealth is spread across multiple accounts, business structures, or countries. If you’re worried your spouse isn’t being fully transparent about their finances, you’re not alone in that concern, and there are established legal routes to address it.

The starting point is always the same duty we’ve mentioned throughout this guide: full and frank disclosure of everything, wherever it’s held. Where that duty isn’t met, the court has real powers to investigate and respond — including drawing adverse inferences, ordering costs, or setting aside a settlement reached without proper disclosure. Warning signs tend to follow familiar patterns: unusual transfers, unexplained withdrawals, or accounts and assets held in someone else’s name.

This is a substantial topic in its own right, and we’ve written more extensively on it elsewhere — including how concealment is traced, what evidence the court needs, and what to do if you recognise the warning signs in your own situation.

Key points

• Full disclosure of worldwide assets is a legal duty, not a courtesy
• Non-disclosure can lead to adverse inferences, costs orders, or a settlement being set aside
• Common warning signs include unusual transfers, unexplained withdrawals, and assets held in another person’s name

Related articles

• Hidden assets and financial misconduct: Signs your spouse is hiding money

Freezing orders and protecting assets

If you’re worried your ex-spouse is moving money, selling assets quickly, or trying to put wealth out of reach before a settlement is agreed, the court doesn’t leave you without options. Where there’s real evidence of that risk, it can step in — but this is a serious, high-stakes remedy, not something granted lightly or often.

What is a freezing order?

A freezing order (historically called a Mareva injunction) is a temporary court order stopping someone from disposing of, dealing with, or reducing the value of assets, up to a stated limit. It doesn’t decide who owns what, and it doesn’t hand you ownership rights — its job is purely to hold things in place so a future financial order can still be enforced once the case is resolved.

These orders typically include a financial cap, clear exceptions for everyday living costs and reasonable legal fees, and often a requirement to confirm what assets exist and where they’re held, usually in a sworn statement. Importantly, this isn’t a tool for controlling ordinary post-separation spending — the court needs clear evidence of a real risk that assets are being moved to defeat a fair settlement, not just spending you personally think is unreasonable.

When might you need one?

The court looks for a genuine need to protect assets — evidence that a spouse intends to deal with assets to defeat your claim, or that unjustified dealing has already started and is likely to continue. Some patterns tend to raise concern:

• Large unexplained withdrawals, or accounts being closed or altered without explanation
• Transfers to family, friends, or a new partner — especially where they’re described as “loans” with no paperwork
• Rushed sales of property, shares, or valuables, particularly at less than market value
• Sudden activity in trading accounts, crypto wallets, offshore accounts, or newly formed companies or trusts
• Unusual pidends, director’s loans, or asset transfers that don’t look like ordinary business activity
• Threats (“you’ll get nothing”) paired with sudden transactions

The court will also weigh whether an order is proportionate — if only a small part of the overall assets is genuinely at risk, less drastic steps may be expected first.

The legal basis

In porce and civil partnership proceedings, the court’s power to make these urgent orders usually comes from section 37 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, applied through the interim remedies process under Part 20 of the Family Procedure Rules 2010, alongside the court’s general power to grant injunctions. In practice, you’ll need to show a good arguable case and a real risk that a future financial order won’t be enforceable because assets are being moved, hidden, or improperly disposed of.

The court wants proof, not suspicion — bank statements showing unexplained transfers, evidence of a below-market sale, company documents suggesting unusual pidends or loans, or a pattern of refusing to provide financial information alongside suspicious activity all help build that case.

Applying without notice

These applications are often made without warning the other party, since advance notice can give someone the chance to move assets before the order takes effect. But without-notice applications are the exception, not the rule, and come with a high duty of honesty — you must tell the court about facts that don’t help your case as well as those that do. Leave something significant out, and the court can cancel the order and make you pay the other side’s costs.

Any order made without notice will be time-limited, with a quick follow-up hearing so the other party can attend and argue for it to be varied or lifted.

How far can an order reach?

Freezing orders are usually limited to assets in England and Wales. In rarer cases, the court can make a worldwide freezing order covering assets abroad — though this raises extra questions about whether there are enough assets here to meet the claim, whether identifiable assets exist overseas, and whether the order can realistically be enforced in that country.

Alternatives worth considering

A freezing order isn’t always the right — or only — tool. Depending on the situation, other steps can offer real protection, sometimes instead of an injunction and sometimes alongside one:

• Written undertakings from the other party not to dispose of assets, with advance notice of any proposed dealings
• A notice or restriction registered with HM Land Registry to protect property
• Using the financial remedy process itself to obtain better disclosure, including targeted or third-party requests
• Section 37 set-aside applications, where assets have already been transferred to defeat a claim
• Asking the court to “add back” dissipated assets, treating them as still part of the pot when deciding what’s fair

If you’re concerned right now

If you think your spouse may be dissipating assets, a few things matter most: act quickly and keep evidence (bank statements, messages, anything showing threatened or actual dealings), avoid accessing accounts or documents unlawfully yourself, and consider whether a clear written request for undertakings might resolve things before court becomes necessary. These applications are evidence-heavy and can be costly if the court considers them unnecessary or too broad, so getting the right advice early — about which remedy actually fits your situation — matters as much as acting fast.

Key points

• A freezing order preserves assets so a future financial order can be enforced — it doesn’t decide ownership
• The court needs clear evidence of a real risk of asset dissipation, not just spending you disagree with
• Without-notice applications carry a high duty of honesty, and non-disclosure to the court can see an order cancelled
• Orders are usually limited to assets in England and Wales; worldwide orders are rare and raise separate enforcement questions
• Alternatives like undertakings, Land Registry restrictions, or targeted disclosure requests can sometimes achieve the same protection at lower cost and risk

Related articles

• Freezing orders in porce: Stopping a spouse from dissipating assets

Non-court resolution options for HNW couples

Court isn’t the only route through a porce, and for many high net worth couples, it isn’t even the preferred one. Where there’s a genuine willingness on both sides to work things out constructively, a range of non-court options can offer more privacy, more control over the outcome, and often a faster resolution than litigation.

Mediation

Mediation puts you and your ex-spouse at the centre of the decision-making, rather than leaving a judge to decide. A trained mediator facilitates the conversation — they don’t impose an outcome, but help you both work towards one you’ve shaped yourselves. For high net worth cases specifically, this matters: complex financial arrangements, business interests, or international assets benefit from a process where both parties genuinely understand and agree to the outcome, rather than having it handed down.

Kim Beatson, David Emmerson and Fiona Snowdon are all recognised by Chambers and Legal 500 specifically for their work with high net worth clients. Chambers specifically credits Kim’s mediation practice alongside her broader work on complex financial settlements. That depth of experience matters when the financial picture is complicated.

Mediation is generally most suitable where there’s roughly equal bargaining power between you and no history of domestic abuse. It’s also considerably more cost-effective than court — sessions are tailored to your schedule rather than dictated by court timetables, and any agreement reached can be formalised into a legally binding consent order with a solicitor’s help.

Learn more about family mediation →

Collaborative practice

Collaborative law works well for high-value settlements, particularly where external experts like accountants or valuers need to be part of the conversation. You and your spouse each instruct a collaboratively trained lawyer, and all four of you sign an agreement committing to resolve things without going to court. Round-table meetings replace adversarial correspondence, which tends to suit cases involving business assets or pre-nuptial agreements — situations where you need proper legal support in the room but want to preserve a workable relationship with your ex-spouse.

Learn more about collaborative practice →

One Solicitor Solution

Where you and your spouse are reasonably amicable and don’t want to fund two separate legal teams, a single solicitor can sometimes act for you both — either representing one party while working constructively with the other, or giving both of you the same joint advice as a genuinely neutral adviser. Either way, you only pay for one lawyer, though this isn’t the right fit where there’s a high level of mistrust between you.

Learn more about One Solicitor Solutions →

Early Neutral Evaluation and private FDR

If you’re stuck on a specific issue but want to avoid a full trial, Early Neutral Evaluation gives you a realistic read on how a court would likely view your case. A jointly selected solicitor or barrister offers an independent opinion on the probable outcome, which often breaks a deadlock and lets you restart negotiations with a much clearer sense of your position.

Private Family Dispute Resolution takes this further — you hire a private “judge,” often a senior solicitor or retired judge, who can either make a binding decision (arbitration) or offer the same kind of early neutral evaluation in a more structured hearing. Since you’re choosing your own tribunal and timing rather than waiting on an overstretched court system, this route has become increasingly popular, especially for cases where privacy matters.

Learn more about Early Neutral Evaluation and private FDR →

Arbitration

If mediation and collaborative law don’t feel right for your situation, arbitration offers a binding outcome without the wait for a court date. You appoint an arbitrator to act as a private judge, and their decision — the “Award” — is legally binding and enforceable, in the same way as a court order would be. For high net worth clients who need certainty on a specific date, or who value privacy over the openness of a courtroom, this can be a genuinely attractive option.

Learn more about arbitration →

Key points

• Non-court options can offer more privacy, control, and speed than litigation — but they depend on a genuine willingness to cooperate
• Mediation and collaborative practice both put you and your spouse in charge of the outcome, rather than leaving it to a judge
• One Solicitor Solutions works only where trust between you remains reasonably intact
• Early Neutral Evaluation and private FDR are useful where you’re stuck on a specific issue and want an independent read on likely outcomes
• Arbitration provides a binding, court-equivalent decision without a court timetable, and suits clients who value privacy and certainty

What our clients say

Nothing we say about our approach carries as much weight as hearing it from people we’ve actually helped. Below are a few reviews from clients who came to us with complex, high-value financial matters, linked back to their original reviews on Trustpilot so you can read them in full context.

What our clients say

Kim Beatson — Family Department
A client going through a complex porce described Kim’s approach as “no nonsense and direct,” with clear, timely communication that helped both parties reach a fair outcome.
Read the full review on Trustpilot →

Sarah Hughes and Kim Beatson — Family Department
For a complex case, one client credited the team’s expert advice with achieving a fair outcome, highlighting how sensitively the process was handled during an emotionally difficult time.
Read the full review on Trustpilot →

David Emmerson — Family Mediation
A client described David’s mediation of a difficult financial settlement as achieving “an equitable result,” with efficient, low-friction communication that helped keep legal costs down.
Read the full review on Trustpilot →

Ruth Omoregie — Family Department
A client navigating a stressful porce, including a period as a litigant in person, described Ruth as accessible and transparent, giving realistic advice that left them feeling “empowered” throughout.
Read the full review on Trustpilot →

Lola Ajayi — Family Department
One client praised the Lola and the team’s efficiency and diligence in securing a strong settlement, noting that their guidance helped the client handle some steps independently — saving on costs along the way.
Read the full review on Trustpilot →

When to seek legal advice

Throughout this guide, one theme keeps coming back: the earlier you get proper advice, the better positioned you are. Whether that’s disclosure, valuing a business, protecting assets from being moved, or simply understanding what “high net worth” means for your own situation — decisions made in the first few weeks of a porce tend to shape everything that follows.

If you’re weighing up whether now is the right time to get advice, it can also help to understand how we charge before you get in touch.

There’s no single moment that’s “too early” to talk to a solicitor. But there are some situations where getting advice quickly matters more than usual:

• Your finances involve more than one country. Jurisdiction questions, overseas assets, and enforcement issues are all easier to navigate before proceedings begin than after.
• You own a business, or your spouse does. Valuation, disclosure, and the question of whether a business is matrimonial or non-matrimonial property all benefit from early input.
• You’re worried about hidden or disappearing assets. If you suspect your spouse is moving money, selling property quickly, or being less than transparent, time matters — some protective steps, like freezing orders, depend on acting before assets are gone.
• Pensions form a significant part of your wealth. Getting an early, accurate valuation avoids a settlement that looks fair on paper but underestimates what retirement provision is actually worth.
• You and your spouse are on reasonably good terms. This might seem like the opposite of urgency, but early advice on non-court options — mediation, collaborative practice, arbitration — often works best before positions have hardened.

Getting advice early doesn’t mean committing to litigation, or to any particular approach. Often, the first conversation is simply about understanding your options: what your financial picture actually looks like, what a fair outcome might involve, and which of the routes we’ve covered in this guide — court, mediation, arbitration, or something else — genuinely fits your circumstances.

If you’re not sure where to start, our porce checklist is a useful place to begin thinking through the practical and financial issues you’ll need to address. And if cost is a concern before you’ve even had a first conversation, our guide to the cost of porce in the UK sets out what tends to drive expense up or down.

Key points

• Early advice shapes outcomes — disclosure, valuations, and protective steps are all easier to get right at the start than to fix later
• International assets, business ownership, pension wealth, and concerns about hidden assets are all situations where speed matters
• Getting advice early doesn’t commit you to court — it’s often about understanding which route actually fits your situation
• Even amicable couples benefit from early input, particularly around non-court options

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