With the courts currently shut and only urgent disputes being heard our family team can offer alternative methods of dispute resolution. First, through remote meditation the team can, via video conference, arrange mediation (with a third party mediator) on matters such as where children stay and on financial matters on separation. Three of our team are accredited meditators and can guide you through these issues remotely at this difficult time. The second option is arbitration. While an arbitrator can't divorce you they can make an award on other areas of family law such as financial provision on divorce, cohabitation claims, aliment claims and issues relating to children. Our team has two family law arbitrators who can consider whether your case is suitable for arbitration and would be glad to discuss the suitability of any case with you.
Powers of Attorney
Continuing and Welfare Powers of Attorney, alongside Wills, are at the forefront of many clients' minds at the moment. Where your Powers of Attorney are already registered with the Office of the Public Guardian they should be available for immediate use. You may have to contact us to obtain a certified copy of the documents, and we will do all that we can to get these to you as quickly as possible. Clients can also rest assured that there are procedures available to put in place new Powers of Attorney quickly even during the current period of uncertainty.
Exercising your powers as attorney is something that may be necessary now because an elderly person may be self-isolating. Keeping a careful record of any usage of the power is important and we are here to provide guidance as to best practice as needed.
Will preparation
We want to assure all of our clients that even during this difficult period we are here for you and here for your family and will continue to do our utmost to meet our clients' requirements in relation to will preparation even where physical meetings are not possible in the current climate. We can email and post documents to you for signing and guide you through the signature process even where a witness is not readily available.
