The Harbour Family Law Podcast
The Harbour Family Law Podcast offers compassionate, expert guidance on navigating divorce, separation, and co-parenting.
Hosted by the firm’s directors, Katy, Fiona and Nicky, each episode breaks down family law into clear, accessible advice; from first meetings to child arrangements and financial settlements to mediation and collaborative
You'll hear from legal experts and experienced professionals sharing practical insights to support your emotional and legal well-being.
Whether you're facing the early stages of separation or resolving long-standing issues, this podcast is a trusted guide through the family law process.
The Harbour Family Law Podcast
Do You Need a Financial Order Upon Divorce?
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In this episode, Katie Zikking and Ros White discuss the fact that a divorce order only ends the marriage, not any financial claims, which need to be closed separately through a financial remedy order.
Katie and Ros explain that while many people think they don’t need one, it’s still advisable as a form of protection against future claims. They explore case study examples, from lottery wins to business growth, that show how financial disputes can reopen years after divorce.
The episode covers how in many cases, agreements are straightforward and quick to reach and outlines the value of early legal advice when it comes to understanding your position and securing a final settlement that allows both parties to move on with certainty.
To find out more or speak to a specialist, visit https://www.harbourfamilylaw.co.uk/
Hi Roz. Hi Kate. Thanks for coming in. You're welcome. It's really nice to see you. And you. We're going to talk about whether and when you need a financial order upon divorce. I am here with Roz White, Senior Associate at Harper Family Law, and she is an absolutely ace lawyer. Roz looks around all corners for her clients. And she has, as a result, great outcomes and some really lovely testimonials. If you want to look on our website, you can see some of them. But um thank you for the help you give our clients, Roz.
SPEAKER_01It's a pleasure. It's a it's a good thing to do. I enjoy it. Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Um fun fact about you and me. Mm-hmm. We were trainee solicitors together.
SPEAKER_01We were many moons ago.
SPEAKER_02Trainee solicitors. I know.
SPEAKER_01Long time ago. We're not going to say the baby solicitors. Really. No, let's not. Let's not do that.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for joining me on this podcast. And we are going to talk about whether people need a financial order upon divorce. And the reason we're going to focus on that is because that is the um one off the top five red blogs on our website.
SPEAKER_01Which is interesting.
SPEAKER_02It is really interesting. And um it's it's one that's been on the website for quite a while, but it really is um top-rated and people visit it often. So that's why we're focusing on it because it's obviously obviously of interest to our listeners. So it's a good idea to circle back on that and just have a podcast about it just to explain a bit more because it is really helpful, I think, to understand that situation. Um, so do you want to sort of explain how that question comes up in your practice?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So quite often when we see people who are thinking about starting a divorce or maybe having started one, um, they will want to talk about the financial side of it and what they need to think about in relation to dealing with their finances. Um often people don't understand that it's something that needs to be dealt with separately to the divorce, um, because if you don't, you you you run the risk of not having those things sorted and settled and final when your divorce reaches the end. The final order that you get on the divorce that dissolves your marriage legally does not address or deal or finalise your financial claims against each other. So people want to understand a bit more about that, whether they need to worry about it, whether it's something they need to get into or not. You know, we quite often see people perhaps who are younger, short marriages, no children, or whose financial situations are quite equal and they feel, oh, we don't need to worry about that because we're not wanting to explore any claims against each other. We can just park that, do the divorce and not worry. Um, but we just go through some aspects of that with them around finances and help them understand that actually it's quite a good thing to think about and deal with at the same time as when you're doing your divorce and get all that tied up so that it's something you can move on from at the end with certainty about where you're going in your lives as separate people. Um so it comes up often in the conversation about divorce. Quite a lot of people will be doing the divorce themselves these days under the process uh vargov.uk, it's set up very much for people to do that. Um, as I said, so quite often when we see them, it's when that's already started. But maybe part of that process has triggered them to think about the finances, and that's what they're a little bit more unsure about and what they want some guidance on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And and just sort of circling back to you know, taking the bigger picture, you cannot you can no longer be married to somebody but still have matrimonial claims against each other, which is it does it feels counterintuitive, it does, doesn't it? You you imagine that when you're into final order of that that should be or or could be it.
SPEAKER_01And it's understandable people think that, you know, oh final order, that's it, go away, don't have to worry about each other and money or anything else again.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So you can have a final order, but you still need to think about whether you need to close or extinguish the claims between you both matrimonially, and that requires a separate order called a financial remedy order. Absolutely. Which is usually hopefully dealt with by consent. So you agree it between you both. And actually, if you think about um, you know, you're talking about perhaps young people who divorce in their twenties, they don't have any assets yet or significant assets. So, you know, they're obviously thinking to themselves, well, we don't need to worry about the financial side of it. But there are some uh reasons, very good reasons why that's not the case. When I'm sort of advising clients about whether to go ahead with a financial order which contains a clean break, I'm I'm really sort of um explaining it in terms of it being an insurance policy for the future.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know, the same as you would think about holiday, do I need to bother with holiday insurance? Probably nothing will happen, I won't bother it, it'll be a waste of money. If you don't get your financial order, you're avoiding a little bit more work, time, and maybe a bit of money at that point. But if down the line you haven't got it, you are opening up the risk that you are creating a problem for down the line and that that claim could come up and you haven't closed it down by having invested a little bit in this insurance policy at the time that you're doing the divorce. So it's a really good way of helping people understand what they're investing in, uh sort of future-proofing their situation, really, and it's worth doing that. When you're doing the divorce, why not? It makes sense, do it all in one go. And the system is set up for that. If, as you say, the hope is that you get an agreed order to sort out your finances, it's a relatively straightforward process within the divorce that can be done. Um, so yeah, definitely think of it as an insurance policy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and in preparing for this conversation with you, I was thinking about um the case law on this topic, which is um there was this big case which I know you know um called Vince and Vince, which shook the family. It was quite a surprise. Um if I just explain the sort of um facts of that case, um uh a man called Dale Vince got married when he was in his twenties and he got divorced and he had a final order, but he didn't have a financial remedy order or a clean break order within that. So he just went ahead with the divorce and went on to become the founder of Ecotricity, which is a major UK green energy and wind power company, and he made a fortune. He made a fortune. His ex-wife some twenty years later successfully claimed a share of his fortune, uh even though they'd separated for 20 years and they had gone through divorce at the time.
SPEAKER_01And that fortune had all been amassed post-divorce. Uh uh himself, not a contribution from her in any way.
SPEAKER_02No, so you know, that's a really um well newsworthy but but really clear example of how this can happen to people and how the clean break is an insurance policy for the future. She ended up at the High Court ordered her uh 40 million, which you know i is not an insignificant sum. No. Of course, he was very, very wealthy, yeah. But but it's such a a uh a great example and when I talk to clients about why they need a financial remedy order, that one is a really um good one to remember.
SPEAKER_01Of course, it seems far-fetched because not everybody builds a business and makes uh billions, but exactly the sort of case you were talking about though, young couple not really seeing that happening in their future, not turning their mind to that. Um yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you still need to think about it.
SPEAKER_02Another case I had in my practice when I was quite a young solicitor, um, I acted for a husband. He had been divorced in his twenties and they didn't have a financial order. He had then gone on to marry somebody else and they had children. He won the lottery, and his first wife came back to make a claim against that, and they did settle out of court, and she did get a slice of that winning. So, you know, that is um perhaps a less dramatic but but still quite dramatic. Yeah, yeah. You know, windfalls uh um expected inheritances, inheritances, businesses growing beyond what you thought they were going to be in the first place. Any sort of windfall, you know, any sort of life event can can just shift things in a different direction. And it's all about you know trying to have the crystal ball and trying to be themselves in the future.
SPEAKER_01But also, even if there isn't anything significant enough for the other person to attach a claim to, there's still the nuisance factor if someone decides that you know down the line their ex is doing a little bit better than they are and they want to try, chance their arm, even if they haven't got much strength to their case, it's still a nuisance you don't want to have to deal with, you don't want that popping up um from your past and having to address it. So avoid it by by getting your order when you do your divorce.
SPEAKER_02And I think for that classic sort of scenario where you have a young couple who don't have any assets, at that point it's very likely to be agreed, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02You're not going to have any resistance from No, so you can get it done relatively efficiently and cheaply now without having um a more difficult dispute later on. Absolutely. So that's an another um reason to give it some thought.
SPEAKER_01Of course, it's important to point out that we've been talking about um, you know, uh this in a in the context of a uh a marriage, but it also applies equally to civil partnerships and same-sex relationships. So if you have those uh legal um contracts the financial order process applies equally to that.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So they are they're yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02When I was told that this was our best read blog, um I was thinking about why that is. And I I guess it's because people ideally want to get their divorce done as painlessly and quickly and efficiently as possible. Yeah. And if they can avoid doing something, then I can I can well understand they would want to. Um I and I guess what we're doing in this conversation is just explaining why it might be worth delving into a bit more detail about it just to be absolutely sure you don't need one. Yeah. Um or that you're willing to take the risk that you don't need. Yeah, you know, yeah. Because anybody can have um something occur later in life, which means that actually it would become an issue.
SPEAKER_01I guess also since the divorce process has become m more straightforward and people are doing the doing it m on their own more, perhaps that that part of it alone, they're wondering whether there's anything else that they need to think about or whether they can just if the whole thing has got easier, including the financial claim aspect of it, and understanding what that part is separate from the the divorce that they might be doing themselves. And obviously that might explain why a lot of people are looking at this blog uh as well to inform themselves about that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Um what can our listeners do to arm themselves with more knowledge so they make an informed decision about this? Yeah. What can they do?
SPEAKER_01So we offer an uh an initial consultation where we see people for up to an hour and a half, and uh within that, you know, come and see us really early on uh and we can have a conversation with you about your um situation, whether you've started the divorce or not, if it's something that you think is inevitable, we can have a chat about what the financial issues are that you need to think about. Um, you know, as much as you can gather about the financial situation that there is between you and the sort of the financial landscape that there is within the marriage is really helpful at that initial appointment. Although if you don't know, don't worry. You know, we can work on sort of some general principles of of things. But you know, come and talk to us, see see somebody, have a chat about um what you think there is or there might be in the pot, if you like, and what you're wanting to achieve and what your end game is if it's to get this done quickly and and without a fuss or without looking at finances, um that's fine. We we can talk you through that, but we can also talk you through the other things you need to think about, whether you want that insurance policy, the risk of not doing it. Ultimately it's your decision. Um and you know, we will act on your instructions, but it's just really good to know. So coming and having a conversation early is good, um, and drawing as much of the information that you can gather about the financial uh picture between you and your spouse is helpful because then we can talk about what sort of orders you might want your financial order to make or what sort of provision you want your order to make, and you know, try to see if we can achieve that on a clean break basis for you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, wonderful. All of our specialist solicitors can help you with this at Harbour Family Law. On our website, we have a um a contact form, you can complete that with the most minimal detail, and we will give you a 15-minute free callback.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So that's another way to just you know, just explore this a bit further and just dig a bit deeper. Yeah. Because um it's all about protecting your position. And for most people, a financial order on upon divorce is a is a once and for all settlement. It's very, very, very rare for a financial order to be undone. Yeah. And therefore, you know, get it right the first time is is is a great.
SPEAKER_01Arm yourself with some knowledge so that you can make the best decisions for you and know that when your final order on your divorce comes through, your marriage has been legally dissolved, your financial claims have been sorted, and you can move on into the new phase of your life um with certainty and finality, and hopefully for a for a bright future.
SPEAKER_02Wonderful. Thank you, Roz, for discussing this with me. No problem. Hope it's been useful. Definitely. I I look forward to the next time. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you.