Property and finances

Arranging your finances and property can be difficult during a breakup.

For a simple visual guide to the financial mediation process, please click here.

Typically, the sorts of things you will probably need to think about are:

  • Where everyone will live.
  • What will happen to the mortgage or tenancy.
  • How assets will be shared or distributed. This can include equity (if you own a property) and pensions (if you are married).
  • Budgeting & dealing with debts.
  • Maintenance and child support.

On all these issues the final outcome will depend very much on your views about:

  • What is "fair". (which may not necessarily mean a 50/50 split)
  • What is realistic.
  • What best meets the needs of all members of the family, particularly the children.

Your mediator will assist you and your former partner to make a full disclosure of your finances which will be set out in a manner acceptable to a court. The mediator will then:

  • Help you to identify and understand your assets, liabilities, income and expenditure.
  • Use this information to help to explore the options available to you and the likely consequences of each.
  • Help you to negotiate and agree proposals with one another for sharing your finances in a way that you consider to be fair.
  • Produce summaries of the mediation meeting outcomes that you can use to obtain legal advice alongside mediation. (See Helping to keep your legal costs down.)
  • Produce a Memorandum of Understanding setting out all your proposals which can be used by a solicitor to make your agreement legally binding.