Mis-advised

hi, what should i do if i have been mis-advised by my solicitor on the financial settlement of a divorce? thanks

Part of the trouble with our divorce law is its flexibility. The Court is required to have regard to a number of considerations specified in section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. One of the difficulties is that the rules are so vague, so flexible, so open to different judicial interpretation, that it is very difficult even for professionals to predict the outcome of a case.

Let's take, as an example, the House of Lords case of McFarlane v McFarlane - a high value case where the wife was claiming substantial maintenance from her wealthy husband.

The District Judge made an order at the first hearing of the case. The husband appealed and on appeal, a judge reduced the maintenance. Then the wife appealed to the Court of Appeal, who restored the maintenance as assessed by the District Judge but limited it to five years. The wife also appealed against that, and the House of Lords restored the order of the district judge.
Case of here we go round the mulberry bush !

My argument is that you can't say the husband's solicitors gave him bad advice if a High Court judge agreed with them. You can't blame the wife's solicitors either for advising their client to appeal if they eventually won.

Do you see what I'm getting at ? If some of the best legal brains in the country can produce different outcomes on the same facts - what chance has the poor solicitor got ?

If you can tell me why you think you were mis-advised I might be able to comment further - but the mere fact
that the outcome wasn't what the solicitor predicted isn't, of itself, indicative of negligence or bad advice.

Mike

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, basically, as a finacial settlement, i agreed to have my ex partner have 41% of my pension in 2006 which was worth £200k at that point, since then he has dragged his heals and it has taken a further 2 yrs to complete the divorce and he now wants 41% of my pension at todays date which is £291k. my solicitor is siggesting i accept even though he advised me of the original offer was acceptable and so i believe i should have the offer of 2006 to be accepted because why should i be punished for my ex parnter taking time to send in documents etc....

Hope you understand, thanks

Can I recap and make sure I have the facts right.

1. Everything you say here suggests to me that your finances are not yet finalised.
2. If that is the case they weren't finalised in 2006 either.
3. In 2006 you made an agreement in principle that he would get 41% of your pension.
4. Now the CETV is worth more than it was in 2006 so you want to re-negotiate.
5. In principle, it is possible that circumstances may have changed to the point where a deal that may have been OK in 2006 is no longer OK in 2009.
6. Your solicitor is recommending that you stick to the original agreement. I can't comment on this advice because he has t he facts and I don't.
7. So at the moment, correct me if I'm wrong, you are free to accept or reject the advice.
8. In any even, you admit the delay is your husband's fault.

I'm afraid you would have a very hard job establishing
incorrect advice on these facts.

Mike

Hi, thanks for your reply. In answer to your reply, the figures were all agreed and even signed for before my solicitor told me it was 41% of figure based on 2008 rather than 2006 (even though he said to me prior to this it was a figure based on 2006). Since then, i have been to the county court and the judge has ajourned it for 56 days for me to get independent advice from another solicitor and even questioned my solicitor if he even knew what he was doing! so i took some positives from that and think i may have a case to sue for mis-advice....

Thanks