12 October 2010
Andrea Woelke to present Seminar at the Alternative Families Show
28 September 2010
Lesbian Mother Wins in European Court of Human Rights
27 September 2010
Short Window of Opportunity to Benefit Gay Parents
9 September 2010
First parental order for gay couple
9 September 2010
Andrea Woelke speaks at International Conference
16 April 2010
Andrea Woelke is a Guest on LBC Radio
26 September 2009
Andrea Woelke is a Guest on BBC Breakfast about Pre-Nuptial Agreements
2 July 2009
Pre-nuptial Agreement followed
13 June 2009
£220,000 settlement for wife 22 years later
6 April 2009
Alternative Family Law new Website Online
6 April 2009
Parental Provisions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 Come into Force
25 March 2009
French Senate recognises Civil Partnership
News
12 October 2010
Andrea Woelke to present Seminar at the Alternative Families Show
On Saturday 23 October 2010 Andrea Woelke will present a seminar on the legal aspects of surrogacy under English law at the first one-day show for alternative families at the Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden London. The show is a unique opportunity for lesbian and gay couples to get a width of information about all possible ways to become parents. Barry O’Leary of Wesley Gryk Solicitors will also contribute to the seminar and talk about the immigration aspects of international surrogacy.
The seminar follows a few weeks after Andrea Woelke won what is possibly the first parental order for a gay couple in the English courts making them legally the parents of their twin sons, born to a surrogate, after the law changed on 6 April 2010.
As well as presenting the seminar at 2:30pm, Andrea Woelke will be available at a stall for Alternative Family Law to answer questions during the day.
Full details and how to book can be found here.
28 September 2010
Lesbian Mother Wins in European Court of Human Rights
A lesbian mother who had to pay more child maintenance through the CSA before the Civil Partnership Act 2004 came into force than a woman in an opposite-sex relationship would have paid won in the European court today. She had won in the Court of Appeal but the House of Lords (now the UK Supreme Court) had found that the discrimination was lawful. This is a further success for the equal treatment of lesbian and gay families in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
The full judgment can be read here.
27 September 2010
Short Window of Opportunity to Benefit Gay Parents
Parents of children born to a surrogate mother have six months from the birth to apply for a parental order to make them the legal parents of the child under English law. Through little-known provision gay couples have only until 5 October 2010 to make the application for any older children.
On the day that what is thought to be the first parental order was made in the High Court in favour of a gay couple, the parent’s solicitor Andrea Woelke of Alternative Family Law explained: “Until April only married couples could apply for parental orders. Now gay couples and unmarried couples can do so too. Those with older children have only a few days left to file their application.”
Mr Woelke urges couples to get legal advice so they and their children do not miss out.
Andrea Woelke said: “Normally you have six months from the birth to make the application. However, for gay couples the law allows a grace period for older children. The children can be teenagers now and the retrospective law still applies. However, they need to rush to get their application in by 5 October 2010.”
27 September 2010
First parental order for gay couple
In the High Court Mr Justice Mostyn today granted what is thought to be the first order to make a gay couple the legal parents of their 2½ year old twin boys born to a surrogate mother. The two men, who want to remain anonymous, were overwhelmed with joy.
Their solicitor Andrea Woelke said: “This order was made possible through a change in the law in April 2010, which retrospectively allowed gay couples to make the application.”
9 September 2010
Andrea Woelke speaks at International Conference
Today Andrea Woelke was the opening contributor at the 8th German-English-speaking Judicial Conference held at the Federal Ministry of Justice in Berlin. He addressed an audience of judges and other lawyers from England & Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands on recent developments in English family law. He choose to speak about the changes to legal parentage arising from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 and the treatment of foreign pre-nuptial agreements.
16 April 2010
Andrea Woelke is a Guest on LBC Radio
Today Andrea Woelke spoke on LBC Radio to talk about the London Court of Appeal decision in a child abduction case where Mrs Justice Black in the High Court had taken the objections of a 6 year old girl into account in refusing to order the return to Ireland.
26 September 2009
Andrea Woelke is a Guest on BBC Breakfast about Pre-Nuptial Agreements
On 26 September 2009 Andrea Woelke was a guest on BBC Breakfast and BBC News Channel to comment on the increase in pre-nuptial agreements as reported by Resolution.
Andrea Woelke said: “Pre-nuptials can be a fantastic way of setting up practical issues. This is also a great way to see whether you can actually work together. If you are getting married, that’s for life and you have to be able to work together.”
You can watch the clip here.
2 July 2009
Pre-nuptial Agreement followed
Today the Court of Appeal in a landmark case of Radmacher v Granatino ([2009] EWCA Civ 649) decided that the German pre-nuptial agreement between the German wife and the French husband in this case should be upheld.
The husband was still awarded a housing fund for a house in London (of £2.5m) for holiday contact and one near where the former wife and mother of the children live and where the children can have contact with him during term time. However, this will go back to his former wife (or the children) when the youngest child has reached 22 years of age.
Katrin Radmacher, the heiress to the Macherey-Nagel group of companies in Düren, Germany, succeeded in arguing that her French former husband Nicolas Granatino’s claims should be limited to those of a father.
He still received child maintenance (for the time the children will spend with him) and had his debts cleared.
When the couple met, Mr Granatino was a banker in the City of London at JP Morgan earning some £330,000 gross per year and Ms Radmacher ran a show in Chelsea with her sister. Ms Radmacher’s father insisted on a marital agreement (pre-nuptial agreement), certainly so that he could gift part of his estate (about €100m) to his daughter during his life time and thus save inheritance tax. Had Mr Granatino refused to sign the pre-nuptial agreement, Dr Radmacher would probably not have passed part of his estate on to his daughter.
This case strengthens the argument that in effect foreign pre-nuptial and marital agreements should be upheld in the English courts, a questions, which in international cases is hugely important when the divorce happens to be in England because the English divorce application came first.
While this does not make pre-nuptial agreements binding in England, in practice the courts will put far greater weight on them than they did until a few years ago.
13 June 2009
£220,000 settlement for wife 22 years later
The Times reports today that 22 years after the separation a wife received a settlement of £220,000 from her husband.
The marriage lasted all but 4 years and the wife brought up their son. The husband works “occasionally as a chef” and the wife “works in a company that produces online educational materials”. There were no assets apart from an inheritance of £120,000 the husband received after the separation. He invested it in property, which he sold last year at £1.1 million.
This should be a lesson to anyone who thinks that just separating and separating finances will mean that there will be no claims from the former spouse later on. The court apparently made clear that this case was decided solely on the needs of the wife. The fact that the money came from inheritance would have excluded it from any distribution in other countries, especially since the husband got it after they separated. This is not the case in England.
The husband, who is now living in Ireland, should have considered his position carefully and lawyers specialising in international family law would possibly have been advised to move to somewhere else, for example, Scotland, and divorce there.
27 April 2009
DIY Divorce
A new page on our website explains why not to spend money on buying an online „DIY Divorce“ package. For those who want to do their divorce themselves, we have all the links to the necessary forms and guidance. The page also shows why it is important to get things right and how an expert solicitor can help.
6 April 2009
Alternative Family Law new Website Online
Alternative Family Law’s website has been entirely overhauled. There are now 9 areas of family law with over 50 pages with free information about English and international family law.
The website includes references to other web resources that offer support and further information, for example the wealth of support resources for parents who are living separate.
The free information also covers the various ways of alternative dispute resolution: mediation and collaborative law.
6 April 2009
Parental Provisions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 Come into Force
Today the new parental provisions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 come into force by virtue of paragraph 69(1)(a) of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (Commencement No.1 and Transitional Provisions) Order 2009 (SI 2009/479).
This means that any children born as a result of “the placing in [a woman] of the embryo or the sperm and eggs or of her artificial insemination” of a woman who is in a civil partnership taking place on 6 April 2009 or later will have two female parents from the day they are born under English law.
25 March 2009
French Senate recognises Civil Partnership
The French Senate today passed an amendment to a new law that would mean that French law would recognise foreign registered partnerships including English same-sex civil partnerships.
The law will now still need to be passed by the National Assembly.
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© Andrea Woelke 2009
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Disclaimer
This is an outline of the law, practice and procedure in England and Wales. It should not be taken as specific advice. All families and couples are different. The law may have changed since this was written and we therefore accept no liability for inaccuracies. Where examples are given, your personal circumstances may vary slightly, but the difference may be significant for the outcome of the legal process. Contact us for specific advice on your own circumstances.
We take no responsibility for the content of any web pages linked to outside Alternative Family Law.