Where do I begin with sorting my finances with Phil O'Connor

The end of a relationship brings a flood of emotion and a maze of decisions. We sit down with financial planner and seasoned mediator Phil O’Connor to strip the process back to first principles: secure a home you can truly afford, protect your income, and keep a real buffer for life’s shocks.

Phil O'Connor - Resolution Accredited Independent Financial Adviser 

I specialise in the financial aspects of divorce. I work with my clients to help them make better, more informed financial decisions on all the marital assets including pensions, investments and property. I assist clients, mediators and family lawyers across the UK with joint expert, single expert and neutral work. I have been a Resolution Accredited Independent Financial Adviser since its inception in 2007 and a Resolution IFA committee member since 2014 and help to write the examination papers for IFA Resolution Accreditation and reaccreditation. I am an active member of Manchester POD and in 2013 and again in 2019 I was Joint Chair. I completed Foundation Mediation training with FMA in 2014 to understand the process better when working as a financial neutral.

• Free initial meeting with no obligation
• Fixed fees based on an hourly rate of £275.
• Contact details:
  • Tel: 01204 663904
  • Email: phil@on-divorce.co.uk
  • www.On-Divorce.co.uk 
  • www.thedivorceifa.co.uk

Tamsin Caine

Tamsin is a Chartered Financial Planner with over 20 years experience. She works with couples and individuals who are at the end of a relationship and want agree how to divide their assets FAIRLY without a fight.

You can contact Tamsin at tamsin@smartdivorce.co.uk or arrange a free initial meeting using https://bit.ly/SmDiv15min. She is also part of the team running Facebook group Separation, Divorce and Dissolution UK

Tamsin Caine MSc., FPFS

Chartered Financial Planner

Smart Divorce Ltd

Smart Divorce

P.S. I am the co-author of “My Divorce Handbook – It’s What You Do Next That Counts”, written by divorce specialists and lawyers writing about their area of expertise to help walk you through the divorce process. You can buy it by scanning the QR code…

Transcript

(The transcript has been created by an AI, apologies for any mistakes)

Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Smart Divorce Podcast, which is currently planned to be the last ever episode. And so I am delighted to be joined by my really good friend and mentor, Phil O'Connor. Phil, how are you?

I'm well, thank you. Yes. 51 years old on Saturday, so I've managed another year.

A very happy birthday.

Thank you.

I'm looking forward to this chat. It feels like it kind of going full circle to end the podcast chatting to you. Uh, who started my journey into divorce financial planning? Um, do you want to start off by just introducing yourself and telling everybody a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Sure. So uh financial planner, resolution accredited since 2007. Um, started off my own business in 2008, recently sold it. So now specializing wholly in this space. Uh, my divorce journey goes back to my parents' divorcing in 1994, so pre-pension sharing. They made a complete CODS of it, uh, but the system didn't allow them to do it properly. So my dad kept his pension uh but had nowhere to live, and my mum had a house uh and no income. So neither of those situations were ideal, and their way of resolving it was to marry the exact opposites of themselves. So my dad married someone with a house, and my mum married someone with an income, and um, yeah, that's how they resolved their financial planning on divorce, so that never sat well with me. Um, and uh yeah, here I am 20 or 30 odd years from then, but 20 odd years in my career just working in financial planning on divorce.

Fantastic. I think loads of us who work in this space have got experience of divorce, either ourselves or from family, because it does seem seem to uh guide you along that path, doesn't it?

Definitely, it's emotional, isn't it? I mean, that's the one thing in this space that you're gonna have to work out pretty quickly is that um it it isn't easy and it isn't easy to balance how you're feeling with what you're being asked to do. So the skill really of us is to give that information whilst understanding that the clients may not be in the best decision-making place.

Yeah, absolutely. So we're talking in this series about about the very beginning of the of the divorce journey and and the sorts of things that if you're planning on separating or recently separated, you might want to get together in order to make your life a little bit easy. So, from a financial perspective, I I think this is one of the areas that you can get really organized and get things sorted and get yourself together. So, so what when you first meet a client, if they're right at the beginning of their journey, what sort of things are you talking to them about and suggesting that they get together?

Yeah, it's a really good question. I mean, again, it's hard for them to do this, but they have to really focus on the future. They have to get their goals and objectives in an in align with where they're gonna be and not where they are, and that is like so hard to do. Um, but your best outcomes are gonna come from understanding where you're heading rather than what you have now or or harking back to what you might have had. So going forward, it's really from the financial point of view, is can I put a roof over my head? Uh, how do I do that with ideally the least amount of debt or no debt? Um, and then into things like have I got a buffer, financial buffer, have I got any income? Uh where's my income going to come from? How secure is that income? Uh, and for how long is that income going to be paying out for? So really they're the two stools, capital and income. And um yeah, I'd be talking to them about where that's coming from, how much security they've got around it. So if they haven't got that to hand or access to it, which we see a lot of, um, either through design coercion or just no desire to be involved in the finances, it that has to change. So, you know, there's no good separating and moving out if you then don't have access to money because that's not gonna work. Um, so that's a real consideration at the start is you know, are they safe, are they secure? What are they gonna find on the other side of this? Um, particularly when they announce it as well, because that can be a big, big deal. So getting ready for the fallout, um, which is obviously not just for it's clearly not financial, but will have a bearing. Um, so yeah, it's I mean it's a privilege to do the work we do. We we we see in clients that they're often at their lowest ebb. There's not just the divorce going on, they're trying to raise families, they're trying to deal with parents often. Um, they can be dealing with bereavement, all sorts of stuff going on. It's a real hornet's nest when you open it up, but that privilege does give you a lot of um satisfaction to help them through. Um, but yeah, getting your information together, finances, knowing where money is and knowing that you've got access to it, uh, it's huge.

Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned then about about trying to see your future rather than focusing on what you degree, what your life looks like now or has been looking like in the marriage. As you said, it's really difficult for people to see their future, and it's almost feels like an evolving process. How do you help clients who were in this, as you said, very emotional state to see to start focusing on the future? Because that's a really tricky thing to be able to do.

I think it's tricky at any time. I mean, we all don't want to think about it, um, or we or we, you know, we may struggle to think about it. There's definitely a disconnect, there's often a disconnect that you're dealing with. So, how you know, there's a competing emotions around change. Um, so if you're gonna move from the main house that you've been living in and having to, you know, change, there's it can be a status change, can't there? Um, so getting them ready for that is is really being honest, actually. You know, one of the things as a financial planner that we can see pretty quickly is whether any of this is gonna work or not. So a common conversation will be can I stay in the main house? I don't want to move, you know, the kids are settled, they're at the school, da-da-da-da. And on the face of it, you're like, well, of course, we're gonna try and achieve that for you. But if it's if it's miles off, you need to be telling them. Um, and and managing expectations is is a is a financial planner's goal, anyway, or role, sorry. Um, so having that honest conversation with people and saying, This is this is the quantum of what you have, this is this is reality here. Um and it does evolve. I mean, I I do a lot of work with clients going through mediation, coaching them, and where we start and where we end is often a different place, but they also change over that process so they can see it, they can understand it. We've got tools that we can use, haven't we? Like financial planning, modelling, and what have you that make it obvious so we can show um deficits where they are. Um but that future focus is very difficult because there's a lot of change going on at in a very short period of time. There's competing emotions because obviously they're feeling the way they're feeling, but they're also feeling often bad for their children, so it's like a double whammy. Um, but you know, it I always think if you can take a client through the process and at the end of it, they are in a house with little or no debt, with a buffer, they've got an income stream from somewhere, whoever that's working or you know, assets, uh, and then they've got some sort of pension share on top of that, so that the future is, if not secure, you know, they can build on to it, then that's a pretty good outcome. That's a balanced outcome, and that's not the outcome that my parents got. So I'm always working towards can we manage all, can we meet as many of the goals as possible? If we can't, if we are gonna then make a compromise, do we know what that compromise is? And do we understand that compromise? And are we okay with that compromise?

It is a real balancing act, isn't it, to to make sure that that everything's covered? And I think I think some of the time I certainly I've looked at working with people who couldn't really afford the lifestyle that they had when the that was happening in the marriage. If we'd have got to them as a couple, um financially planned for them as a couple, we'd have still been saying, actually, your lifestyle's not affordable. And then when you get that and you've got to create two households out of it, it it can be really difficult.

Agreed, yeah. I mean, central tenant of financial planning, um, spend less than you earn. Yeah. I mean, I learned that after quite a while, actually. Um, you know, came out of university with low debts, but struggled to um, you know, pay them off because I was enjoying spending and going beyond my means in that sense. So once you can get in a position where you're ahead, um you you you you naturally start to move ahead and you can and start making planning decisions for the couple who are living beyond their means. I mean, again, it comes down to all sorts of things. Um, but that that that goal that I've just described there of having sort of two houses as debt-free as possible, income streams, yeah, that's going to be put under a lot of pressure. I mean, frankly, the work I do, the hardest ones are the ones where there's low asset base, high debt, low incomes, or no income on one side, say, um, that's super hard. Like, you know, I won't go say impossible, there's always a settlement. You can always find a settlement, um, but the level of compromise is going to be large, possibly very large on one side. Um, but for most overspending, um it turns up in divorce, and you see it, and then you've got a problem on your hands.

Yeah, no, absolutely. You talked before about um clients wanting to stay in the family home, and it's something that that we see a lot. Um it feels like it's often you talked about your mum getting the family home and your dad having the pension, and and you know, that's definitely how it was. I still see a lot of particularly women without wanting to make sweeping generalizations, wanting to stay in the family home, even though it feels like it's going to be a real stretch to keep them there and they might be giving up other things in order to do that. Do you ever try and talk them around not staying in the family home because of the financial pressure it'll put them under?

Um yes. Uh, do I do it delicately? Absolutely. Do it do it in all cases, no. Um, for some people it would be a non-negotiable. So I always talk about where's the hill that you're prepared to die on. And I've just took my sister through her divorce, which was awful, and I was far too close to it actually. So I would never do that again. Fortunately, I only have one sister and she's only likely to ever get divorced once. But the the hill that she was prepared to die on came very late on, and it actually enabled the settlement to finish because they just kept pushing. And um, yeah, that that that that's always interesting when you have to have a conversation around a hard decision. So I talk about jam today versus jam tomorrow, and jam today is obvious, it's where you are today, um, it's what you're trying to do, often stay in the house, don't disrupt the children, etc. Uh, jam tomorrow is pensions and things that are a little bit for the, you know, a little bit, they're not clear in the sense of what value they have just now, but future, I always say future you is going to thank now you for the decision you've made around retaining or having a full pension chair because that time comes. You know, I think it is it's always dangerous to have sweeping generalizations, but it's not unfair to say that often mum wants to stay in the house and therefore she will forgo future benefit in pursuit of today's needs. And we all understand that. Anyone with a brain understands that uh mothering instinct. And I think fellas, in my experience, don't quite get to that legal stroke, moral obligation of you know, children are not fully formed at 18 and and never never have been, but you know, rarely are they today. I mean, I've got a 25-year-old who's some of the time at home and is likely in the new year to be having a very we're gonna be having a pretty tough conversation with him because he's ready and he's financially able to leave the house, but obviously his motivations are low. And the point there is that time comes. So then our need now for a as bigger house as we have is is gonna is gonna end. And that and that natural you want your children to fly the nest, you don't know when it's gonna happen. So you have to have an eye on the future, because if you don't, relying on a downsize event to effectively replenish what you should have had as a pension chair, say, if you've chosen to offset, um it leaves you open, I think, to I mean, I don't think there's many people too buoyant about the property market at the moment. So it depends where you find yourself, doesn't it? If you're gonna put all your eggs in one ac in one basket, uh be careful what which basket you choose. I mean, the likelihood is it will work, um, but you do have to find the person to buy your house at the right price and then downsize to the right thing. And and look, we get the motivations, we understand the motivations. It's not about there's so much change going on, you know. The parent, your children. I mean, I didn't, I was 19 when my parents told me they were splitting up, and you'd think at 19 you would be ready, but I was far from it, and and it has had a pivotal impact on my life, absolutely pivotal. Um, and and I know I do this work because of what happened when I was 19. So we can understand the motivations of wanting to stay in the house, but sometimes, sometimes financially it's just obvious it can't happen. And it I think it's often in the cases where so you've got two poles really, one where it's just cannot happen, then you've got the one where it's obvious it can happen and it's a choice. So that's fine in both cases. They're they're fairly easy to manage. It's the ones in the middle, it's the ones where you could probably stretch to, or um, if you gave, you know, if you compromise on the future, then it can be possible. But you know, people are people, aren't they? And they're gonna do they're gonna do they're gonna do things that we in we as professionals would would sort of rail against because the mo the emotions and their desires, their biases are are what they are, and we and we've just got to try and navigate that.

Yeah, no, absolutely agree. It is those, it's the ones where you kind of think, well, yeah, you can you could live there, there's enough capital for you to live there, but actually, are you gonna really stretch yourself on a monthly basis paying the bills to actually live in a?

I think I think the one they miss, that's fine often. It's the sort oh, I can manage that. It's what if something goes wrong? And that's where it, you know, the the sort of um rubber hits the road, you know, the roof, there's a problem with the roof, or um you know, something goes wrong, basically. It's those financial shocks. So, in a financial plan, going back to what we said earlier, you know, where's the income? Where's the buffer? And often the buffer's missed because you're absolutely pushing everything at this goal of staying in the house, and then you just can't, you know, you can't afford a shock, basically. Uh, if you look at the um some of the analysis that have been done about how much savings there are in this country for these eventualities, it's it's quite stark, really. Um, but yeah, this is major thing to think about is yes, you need somewhere to live, but does it have to be where you are? And actually, could you make it more manageable by the dreaded word of downsizing? Get it. There's ego, there's status, there's um lots of other things, you know. Often people, people's parents have given them money that's gone into that house, there's regret, there's there's all those emotions, and then at the end of the day, the downsize feels like failure. You know, you've got failure around your relationship, which is hard to take having been there. Um, you know, and then you've got this failure of the ill, you know, not the illusion, obviously, but the what you'd built together. So no wonder you know, people struggle, and then I think the massive motivator to stay is the children, always the children. It's mum putting children first over her own needs, and that can cause major problems later.

Yeah, no, absolutely, totally agree there. In terms of to rewind to kind of what we've talked about, thinking starting to think about the future, starting to get your head around looking forward instead of instead of just focusing on what's there. From a practical sense, what sorts of things should people be looking at at getting together? What's, what's going to be needed practically in terms of the finances?

So even with little or no financial knowledge, you need to get up to speed rapido. And we don't always get full full and frank disclosure when we do this work, and often there's a concern around has everything been disclosed. But actually, if you've been with someone for a major amount of time or a decent amount of time, uh, and notwithstanding the things that go on what we know of uh coercion and um control around not giving information, I mean, I got a mediation on at the moment where a lady and Has ended up spending her inheritance because she had access to that, um, but she didn't know what she had elsewhere. Well, she had ISIS, she had savings in a bank account, but she didn't have access to them, so she spent her inheritance. Um, she's obviously feeling pretty annoyed about that because uh that's inheritance was for her not, but effectively the what we're being told legally is that it's kind of gone. So yeah, um, you've got to know where your stuff is basically. I mean, ideally, you'll be joint owner of the house. That's not always the case. Um, you know, that again, I think the danger sometimes is to look at the extremes of what we see and think that's the norm when it isn't. So if you take a typical situation, there'll be a joint owner of a house. So that's fine. You can't sell a house without your authority. So that's great. We know where that is. Hopefully, we're in it. Uh, hopefully the other party isn't in it, too, but that's extremely common. You know, they've got that um inability to leave financially, um, and that's a massive decision. And obviously, other things such as domestic violence can can um mean that that has to happen. But um, yeah, knowing so if there's other properties, what are they? You know, what and and this might not have been spoken about in a marriage, but often it is. And you know, I always think about my own situation with my wife. Does she know where everything is? Probably not. You know, I've got it all written down and I've got an envelope that says, if I die, this is what you do next. Um, it's got everything in it because she just delegates all that to me, and that's a common, common thing, and it can work both ways. You know, it's not a gender thing here at all because I've seen both sides. But you've got to know where your stuff is basically. You need at hand money, so you need a bank account with some money in it. But this is if you're leaving as well, particularly. Make sure you've got some money. So if you're working, great. Make sure that money's going into a bank account that you control. Um, you've got some savings, great. You know, but what about shares? Um, you know, typically people now have had multiple jobs. So I'll often sit down and do a timeline. So we've been we've had three pensions disclosed, but we know he's worked at six places. Right, okay. What happened? You know, let's do the timeline, literally do a timeline and go, where was he? Where was he working? Um, because sometimes you know, disclosure's not as good as it can be. But in my experience, it's pretty good, I think. I don't, I mean, I've had a few where you're like, this is hilarious. You know, do they think we're that naive? Um, but equally, it can be hard to force disclosure where it's you know, someone's not prepared to do it. But in the majority of cases, it's you've got a house, you've got some savings, where are they? Um, and most people know most people know their joint financial position pretty much, give or take a few bits and pieces. You know, there might be some assets that you don't know about, or you you know, he's dabbled in crypto or something, and you know, what's that worth? And um, you you know, you as best you can you work towards getting that information together, really.

Yeah, no, absolutely. So kind of getting this getting the paperwork together, knowing knowing what your name's on, if nothing else, and having a having a broad idea of um of where the money is. I know you talked before about working in in mediation with clients. Um loads of clients that contact me race off to see a solicitor as soon as they hear the word divorce or separation or or whatever.

Yeah.

From your experiences, is that the best place to go? Is that what clients should be doing?

You definitely need you're gonna need legal advice. So how you consume all of these different things is up to you. Um, you you know, sometimes you just can't afford it. That's a problem, but there's some help out there with things like lit litigants in person. Again, it depends on your process. So if you're in mediation, you're gonna be guided by a mediator that'll help your process. Um, but often in a mediation, I'll be in as a neutral, and we get to a point and it's okay. There's an impasse, and there's an impasse because there's a legal point. So it might be something around, you know, one of them brings up, well, I've contributed all the money into this relationship. Okay, you can guide them. So I'm not altogether sure how important that's going to be at the end of the day, but you should go and get some legal advice. So off they go. Um, so legal advice, absolutely really, really important. Um, again, depending on your process, there's lots of processes out there, you know. As in everything in life now, we have choice. Um, I'd probably be slightly biased and say you could do working with a financial planner, find a decent one, find one who knows what they're doing in this space, because they can navigate a lot of this stuff. Um, get to the again, it depends what you're prioritising. So if you've got lots of legal things you need to deal with, then you're going to need a lawyer to run the process. If you're dealing with finances, then at that point you might want to break out and use a pension on divorce expert to do a report, or someone like myself to coach, you know, help have that 20-odd year experience where you can look at something very quickly and go, Yeah, that's in the ballpark, that that'll work, that's that's that's reasonable. Um but I don't think you can ever not have a com at least a conversation with a lawyer. Um I do think a lot of settlements are pretty obvious on the face of it. Um, people do end up arguing over things they really ought not to be arguing about because there's not much weight behind what they're what they're arguing, but sometimes they have to find their way with that. Um it's an imperfect process, isn't it? Let's be honest. And we'll sort of try to navigate it and help clients as best we can. Um, but you are gonna, I mean, one of the things I was thinking about before them this call is um you need to ideally build a team. So a good lawyer, a good planner, if you're gonna use mediation, find a good mediator. Um what about therapists? You know, are you gonna need some external support around where you actually are? I mean, I find clients in all sorts of situations, positions where they are able to negotiate, they're able to understand what's going on, and others they're blocking, they're blocked, completely blocked because of what's you know, traumas and things that have have happened. Um, so maybe they need some support there. You might need an accountant, you might need a tax advisor. Um, you know, if there's tax uh complications to what you're doing, you might need an accountant to to um value a business, you might need a surveyor to value the properties. Um, you know, if you can't agree values, uh lots of things, a lot of choices can be taken away from you through the court process that I hate the court process. I actually rail quite strongly against the court process because two adults who thought it was a good idea to get married, thought it was a good idea, a good idea to sort of bumble along like you do and build a life together, are best placed to sort their own S out. And actually sometimes it is abdication, but it's the maturity I think in divorce comes from being open and frank and saying, This is what we've got and this is what we can do. And those best outcomes. I mean, I work with some wonderful clients in mediation where we can it's often in mediation because if I'm not in mediation, then I'm rarely neutral, I'm usually shadow single expert, just supporting one party. But in a mediation where all the information's available, both parties are trying to work towards a goal. One is usually ahead of the other because either they instigated it or they're just in a slightly better place, and we're just trying to get one party up to speed with information, knowledge, etc., then that that's fantastic. That's like probably some of the best work I've done. It's it's it's I adore it. I love doing it. It's it's it's basically stopping them from doing what my mum and dad did. That's the heart of it, really. If if they can come out of a settlement that doesn't look like my mum and dad's, then I feel like I've added some value.

Tell tell us more uh about what a financial neutral does, because you talked a bit then about working in mediation as a as a financial neutral. So for for those people listening who don't understand what that is and don't know what that looks like, can you tell us a bit about that that role?

Yeah, so again, it the setting doesn't matter so much, but there are people out there, um, not just myself, who are prepared to work as a neutral. So, what that means is literally I'm gonna work in the interests of both to look at the settlement and work out how to divide it in a way that reduces costs, reduces tax, and maximizes the benefits for the parties. If you set that against some other parts of this process, I I think you could clearly say that that is in direct opposite to what's going on. So a neutral would one of the things a neutral can do is is is look at the pensions, decide whether a report's needed, instruct that report. So one of the things I do is walk clients through the financial settlement on divorce process, whichever one you choose, there's three options, but mainly people offset still, but there's a lot more pension sharing going on um than originally when it first came out, 2000-2001. Um and then attachment, but walk them through the process. So these are your options. This is how each pro this is how each option works. Do you need some further information? And if we do need some further information from an expert, can we reduce down the number of questions? So often what we'll find where we're not involved is um you know a lot of questions that are just superfluous. So I feel very comfortable when there's only one question asked. Yeah, me too. Um two max. Uh so one pension question, put one pension sharing question, one offset question is like heaven. Means I feel like we've done our job there. And what I'll do through the process of build that letter of instruction is ask them to go and get legal advice on it. So they've got the option to take it away and legally does this sit right. Um, before we go to the pod, pension on divorce expert, you know, before then we want to ask the questions, not afterwards. You know, again, that's another red flag for me. If we're asking questions afterwards, then we haven't got the questions right at the start. So that rarely happens. But the neutral can look at other things, not just the pensions, it can look at the overall financial settlement. I mean, uh, I'll give you a case that I worked on. So we were looking at offset, partial offset and partial pension share. The lady in question wanted to buy in Guildford, which is an expensive place to buy. She didn't know how much she could afford to go up to on the offset, because effectively, as she offset and took more capital out of the sale of the house, she was forgoing pension share. And I ran a financial model with her outside of the room. So we broke away and I did the work with her, and then I brought the information back into the mediation, presented it. Brilliant couple working really well. Husband was terrific. He was like, Yep, happy, right. So she offset another 200,000, I think it was. I think she bought at 700,000, and there were two teachers. So her teacher's pension and the pension share that she was going to get from him, which she could put straight into payment for herself and because they were of the the right age, um, was enough to meet her income needs. Job done.

Lovely. It's good when it works like that, isn't it?

Yeah, it's sensational. And you to be fair, um, I mean, I work with a lot of mediators, and the quality of the mediator also helps. Sure. But yeah, you you you navigating the settlement really through and having that sort of third party to to ask questions of. You know, if we did this, what would that look like? Um, and no, we can what I've done as well is reflected one model against somebody else's. So, you know, this is your outcome at the end of it. This is what your outcome is at the end of it, to demonstrate fairness and things, to show that needs are met and and both can work with what they've got going forward. So it's it's an absolute pleasure to be a neutral. Um, you know, I've navigated now, so my regulated practice, as you know. So I don't do any of the day-to-day financial planning work that I did when I first started, the stuff that pays the bills. Um I'm in sort of a very nice position to have sold that business and just focus on small one-off pieces of financial planning on divorce work. It's it's fabulous. I mean, I've got two, two after this, where you know it's an hour's work or a couple of hours' work, and I just love it. It's it's I don't have to worry about what did the budget. I mean, I have to understand all this stuff because it's but effectively being parachuted into someone's financial settlement, what a what a what a you know what a great thing to then be able to help those people. And yes, they're gonna pay some money for some professional advice, but we often save them so much money.

Absolutely, absolutely, and and we're experts in in what we're talking about, you know. This is our bread and butter, isn't it? We know we know the products inside out and upside down. Um, you mentioned about finding uh good lawyers and good mediators. Um that might feel like looking for a needle in a haystack if you were uh somebody who'd never been through divorce before. How would you suggest somebody went about doing that?

Gosh, well, how would you go about finding any new professional to work with? I mean, you've got to start with asking around, haven't you? You know, how did it go for you? Because either way, you'll get either a glowing review from your mate or an absolute shambles, you know. So you can deal with things how I don't use them, da-da-da-da. To be honest, it's difficult, isn't it? I mean, I were I've again I'm lucky after 20 years now to be to know. So I've got, I mean, I'll ring lawyers up on behalf of my clients and have a conversation about a point. So, for example, that inheritance case, I rang up a lawyer about that because I was horrified that she'd spent her inheritance because she hadn't been able to access her own money. Now that's not fair, but what's fair and what can be achieved are two different things. So we've worked hard in the mediation, because I'm acting as a single expert for her, to get that in there at least so it's voiced. Um, so I knew who to ring about that, and she gave it me straight. I mean, I was a little bit surprised because I thought she'd be a bit more. She was more about why didn't she know where the rest of the money was? Why didn't she know what was in, you know, why didn't she say, I need to be why are we hearing about this two, three years later? It was it wasn't quite what I was expecting to hear. So again, I gravitate towards lawyers who are very straight talkers. Um, and there's some great ones out there, absolutely brilliant, you know. Um, you know, particularly like the one I trusted with my sister's um divorce, you know, that was one, but of course, I've got this inside knowledge. So from the outside, I think if they've got the resolution accreditation that's useful, the idea behind that is we're going to try and negotiate things without a big bun fight. Sometimes you have to have the bun fight. So I'll often talk to clients and go, well, mediation's gonna work, is it? You know, because these some of these processes can be gained a little bit. So if you are financially on the back foot, you need to be very careful about how long processes can take. Um, and sometimes it might be better to just get on with the legals and get it to court. Um, but yeah, just it's got to do due diligence, look around, um, speak to people, taste the product. Like, we'll always give a little short introductory meeting just to get a sense of what I'm about. If I don't think I'm going to add value, I'll tell you. I mean, I think I'm very honest about the way I work. I will do fix, I don't will do, I only do fixed fees. I won't do an hourly rate. Um, you know, I'm always looking to fix the fee because that's not the process elsewhere. And I think that that sometimes can be a bit of a conflict. You know, if we're just gonna generate issues, then we're gonna make money. I think that can be hard to fathom from a client's point of view. So they want to be doing as little as possible, but in reality, it all comes down to the individuals. So basically, you've got an arse on one side, you've had it, you know, and it's gonna be an uphill battle. And I mean, I had one recently, um, not in this category, but uh because of the way that she'd inherited and the way that she wanted to stay in the main house, she was willing to forego things that both the lawyer and I were not were not happy about. So for a inverted commerce short gain of say 30-40 grand that just happened to be in the house, she was willing to let a lot of stuff go. And you know, that that's when you're working against yourself and and working against your advice. So you can have again that goes back to this competing goals thing, um, not goals, competing um emotions. So, you know, that was guilt around and inheritance again and all sorts of things, but um yeah, it's difficult to I mean, how do you find any professional, you know, if I'm gonna have my roof done? Really hard, but just ask around, um, taste the product, go and in that case, you'd go and see what they'd done elsewhere, wouldn't you? Have you got some photographs, you know, etc. So um ask people, ring people up. I mean, I've done that on you know, I'll ring them. What do you think of? X, you know, have you used them? Have you, you know, what's Tamsin like here? She's really, she's really good. Um, it's like like we pass work around ourselves, don't we? You know, we but you've got to have the confidence that those people are right for the client. It's not easy, and from the outside it's not easy. Um, but you have to get up to speed of the process. If there was one thing I would tell clients to actually learn is end to end, how do you get divorced? Because I think the process, you know, literally going through the orders is something that's really worth learning. And and where does mediation fit in that? All right, all you're doing is negotiating. It doesn't have to be with a mediator, it could be around the kitchen table. But what all you're trying to do is get to a point where you've agreed something, get that signed, you know, get that written up and signed and sealed, and you might want to get that checked by someone because it might be a if you've crafted it yourself, it might not work or it might not get through. Um and you might need some legal advice. Uh so it's you know, it's difficult, but I think if you can understand the process, then you're gonna have a better idea. Like, how do you get divorced? You know, what what goes into it? Because not many people know it.

No, and the actual divorce being a separate process to the pretty much, I know they're intermingled, but to the financials, you know, you can you get divorced is one thing, and the financials is another thing, and those two processes that yes are intertwined, but yeah, knowing how to go through that is as you say, it's really important.

And and then and then what the individual's doing. So if someone is just getting in the way of everything, then I'm sorry, your best bet is get let's get it to hearing and you know let's get it moved to the the actual court and let a judge decide. And actually, there's some money to be spent doing that, but the the lack of waste of time in comparison and money, because there's money to get to there, is it's going to be worth just going straight to court.

Yeah. No, agreed. Agreed. Phil, we're coming to the end of our time together. Is there anything that I should have asked you that I haven't?

I don't think so.

Well, in that case, thank you so much for joining me. It's been a pleasure, as always, talking to you.

Thank you.

Uh thank you for watching or listening. And there's plenty more episodes just like this to catch up on. If you have enjoyed our conversation today, if you could leave us a five-star review, that would be great because it helps us get the podcast out to more people. Many thanks. Hi, and I hope you enjoyed that episode of the Smart Divorce Podcast. If you would like to get in touch, please have a look in the show notes for our details or go onto the website www.smartdivorce.co.uk. Also, if you are listening on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify and you wouldn't mind leaving us a lovely five-star review, that would be fantastic. I know that lots of our listeners are finding this is incredibly helpful in their journey through separation, divorce, and dissolving a civil partnership. Also, if you would like some further support, we do have a Facebook group now. It's called Separation, Divorce and Dissolution UK. Please do go on to Facebook, search up the group, and we'd be delighted to have you join us. The one thing I would say is do please answer their membership questions. Okay, have a great day and take care.