Archive for July, 2008

She may be the hard nosed dragon of the BBC’s Weakest Link, but when it comes to divorce settlements Anne Robinson has to dig deep and cough up like the rest of us. She’s just had to fork out £20 million for her ex husband of 27 years, John Penrose. The figure represents almost a third of her estimated £62 million fortune, though according to reports Penrose actually wanted half.

That’s a lot of cash for putting up with her for 27 years, seems about right.

Penrose will receive £16 million in cash, and four properties worth £1 million each.

Usually when couples divorce assets are divided up 50/50, but Anne Robinson has managed to get away with the lion share of her wealth.

Alan Kaufman, of law firm ‘Finers Stephens Innocent’, explained the reason that Anne Robinson received more than half of the couple’s wealth:

This is the so-called ‘wow factor’, which could apply to Anne Robinson if it is agreed that it was her unique television ability and persona which made her masses of money - not her husband.

If that were the case, it makes sense that her husband has only got a third of her fortune. He would have got more only if he could prove that Miss Robinson is what she is today because of him as much as because of her.

Is this an example of a celebrity getting away with it because they are famous, or a woman getting away with it because she’s a woman? Whatever the reason, had John Penrose been the multi millionaire TV star you can be sure his ex-wife would have received half of his money.

Clive Bellmore

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Divorce can be an expensive business (I should know) but one UK firm from Wiltshire thought that it doesn’t have to be. They’re offering long standing marriage sufferers the chance to break for freedom for as little as £23.99.

Sign me up guys!

The idea came about when they realised that divorce was very expensive, and people always use the Internet to find cheaper alternatives to services and products, so why not get divorced?

Mark Keenan runs the company, Divorce-Online.

We have seen a 48 per cent increase in couples seeking a divorce using the web compared to the first six months of 2007.

And in a survey of 100 clients, 85 said the main factor was cost.

To be honest, cost would be a factor for me, but I’d want to ensure I wasn’t going to lose out long term in any financial settlement. Yes you could save a few quid on your solicitor’s fees, but if they can’t negotiate the right deal you’ll end up losing far more than you could be saving.

There is a need to save money in every walk of life and it’s cheaper to go online rather than heading down the high street to instruct a solicitor.

The cost of using a solicitor can be more than £900 plus court fees. This has driven couples to the web to find cheaper alternatives.

Their prices start at £65 for a divorce that goes without incident, as in an uncontested divorce.

Since the year 2000, they have handled nearly 50,000 uncontested divorces. Recently they’ve moved to bigger offices and taken on more staff, so even with their cheap fees, they’re still profiting nicely from people’s misery.

Nice for them.

Sadly the divorce rate has fallen over the last decade, but Mr Keenan reckons things will pick up again soon. As we’re in a time of economic slowdown, he expects the divorce rate to skyrocket, as it did during the period of 1990-94, when we had our last recession.

Clive Bellmore

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Divorce is so common these days it almost seems a shame to get married in the first place (wish I hadn’t).  However gay marriages have a much better chance of success according to recent figures released by the National Association of Gays and Lesbians.

I know, they’re obviously biased towards gay weddings, but the figures speak for themselves. 50% of marriages currently end in divorce, but of gay and lesbian weddings, only 17% end in divorce, which is quite a difference.

Of course, some parts of America don’t actually allow gays and lesbians to divorce, when they’ve only just allowed the marriages in the first place, but then America has always been a bit backward in this respect.

One of the thoughts behind the higher success rate of gay and lesbian marriages is that they tend to live together before they get married, whereas heterosexual couples have a higher propensity to jump straight into marriage.

Whatever the reason behind the higher success rate, it’s interesting to note that the family unit stands a much better chance of staying together if both parents are the same sex, which must surely outrage the Christians… I’m always in favour of that!

Clive Bellmore

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While the credit crunch is having a negative impact on the divorce rates within the UK, as no one can afford to get divorced any more, it’s having the exact opposite effect on divorce rates in the US, with the super wealthy at least.

In the past year, divorces among the super wealthy have increased, with one divorce lawyer (Raoul Felder) finding his client list rising from 250 to 300 in the past 12 months. This represents the biggest increase in high profile divorces in New York since 1980, when the law was changed to add ‘adultery’ as grounds for divorce.

It seems that people are divorcing because the once mammoth fortunes of the super rich (hedge fund managers for example) are starting to dwindle, causes their spouses to cut and run before they lose too much money. One divorce lawyer stated that he had a client who feared his wife would divorce him when his fortune fell from $20 million to a paltry $8 million.

Psychotherapist Kenneth Mueller stated:

The credit crunch is starting to become a really big issue — especially for the moneyed classes. Once you can’t act out with money you start fighting.

It’s like drinking, or gambling, or sexing your way out of feelings, but with a fabulous family vacation or great clothes or wonderful meals — money can become an addiction that masks the reality. When that goes, reality has to be faced and accusations start flying.

But then, if couples are divorcing because they no longer have the multi millions, and have to make do with just millions, they can’t have had much of a marriage to begin with. If you’re motivated by money, you’ll leave when the money dries up. These men are better off without the women who just want their cash, it’s just a shame it cost them so much to realise it.

Clive Bellmore

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One of the worst parts of getting divorced is when all of your worldly possessions have to be divided up between the two of you, and arguments start over who owns what, who bought what and who wants what more. For example, you’ll probably agree over trivial stuff like the washing machine or the tool set, but when it comes to items such as the car, the widescreen LCD TV and your iPod, you won’t want to lose them.

Proving what’s yours and what’s hers can be very difficult, as legally you both own everything with a 50/50 split, even if you bought it, with your own money, before you were married. In fact, your wife has a legal claim over your property even if you have something that was bought for you as a present when you were a child, long before you even met her (this happened to me with a Hi-Fi system I had for my 17th birthday, and she wanted half of it).

Therefore, you’ll want to protect your items as best you can. One way to do that is to mark them as your own (not in the dog marking its territory sort of way) but with a pen, or via engraving. For example, you could have a laser engraving service to mark your iPod with your name, meaning she wouldn’t want that from you afterwards. You could use a permanent marker, or a UV marker, to brand the Television with your details. These marks can’t be removed, so if she tries to claim it she’ll have to suffer with your name reminding her constantly of where it came from.

It’s not a fool proof solution by any means, but it’s a start and will at least make her realise that something is yours, so if she tries to take it she’ll be reminded of that fact whenever she uses it.

You’ll find though that this won’t stop most women.

Clive Bellmore

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Only in America can something like this exist. You and Me Make Three is a children’s story book from the point of view of BB Bear, which talks children through the complexities and reality of getting divorced.

However rather than being aimed at kids who’s parents are getting divorced, the book is scheduled to be entered into every school in the USA, so all kids all benefit from the horrors of their parents getting divorced, even if they’re not going to. Scare kids much?

The book uses pictures, and a cute bear, to tell kids what it will be like when their parents split up; how they’ll have to spend time at the homes of each parent, see them separately etc. The book was written by three different authors, all women (naturally) and even includes tips for parents. The tips are called SMILE tips, which obnoxiously means ‘Start Making It Livable for Everyone’… yuk.

The Victor Smile Foundation is to donate all the proceeds of the sale of the book to purchase books for schools.

John Landis (not the film director) is the president of Education Foundation for Oakland Schools:

The Foundation believes You and Me Make Three will assist many teachers, students and parents through the emotional process of separation and divorce. Using the book and bear in the classroom will also help children who aren’t involved with divorce to better understand the feelings of those who are.

Personally I feel that having the book in schools will scare the crap out of kids who’s parents are happily married and will worry them unnecessarily.

Clive Bellmore

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There’s something really disturbing about Christians claiming god can help you with everything. It makes me wonder why can’t they just help themselves rather than falling back on their blind faith to see them through a crisis.

Still, if it keeps them off the streets I suppose. This Christian explains how god helped him get over his parents divorce, which I’m sure must have been hard, but I wonder how much was actually him, rather than a non existent god.

Also, why is it that religion tends to prey on those who are at their lowest point? It’s like some huge vulterous beast that looks for people in desperate need of help, and drags them in when they have nowhere else to go.

Is religion saving them, or is it preying on them?

Clive Bellmore

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Chaudhry Rashid, a fifty-six year old Pakistani man, has been arrested for allegedly murdering his own daughter after she wanted to divorce her arranged marriage husband. According to reports, he felt he was somehow preserving his family’s honour by strangling his own daughter to death.

The murder happened in America, where the man and his family lived. Rashid was arrested by police who responded to a call on Sunday. His daughter was just 25 and hadn’t had any contact from her husband in several months.

The police were phoned by Rashid’s wife, who managed to escape her husband’s brutal attack on his daughter.

It’s again hard to understand how someone could murder their own daughter when her marriage to her husband fails.

Clive Bellmore

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The ‘credit crunch’ is one of the hot topics at the moment, with the falling house prices and shops facing reduced sales. However this has also effected the divorce market, which up until now had been the one industry that hadn’t slowed due to financial changes within the world.

Now though couples are even being forced to, and it pains me to say this, stay together. This is because they cannot afford to sell their houses to split the money between them, nor can either one find a lending company willing to grant them a remortgage in order to pay the other off.

Marilyn Stowe is from Stowe Family Law stated:

For most people, this is a very difficult time because, with their main asset essentially being significantly depleted, the value has gone down, it means then that there is less money available to rehouse both parties. It’s taking longer to sell the house, and it’s increasing pressure on the parties who are still having to live together in the same house because they can’t afford to live separately.

For those people, it makes a bad situation even worse.

Finances seem to be driving people to fight divorce because they believe they will not be able to afford it, so are trying to stay together even though the relationship is over.

She claims that the current climate is in fact ideal to get divorced:

For them, this is a good time to get divorced because they’re worth far less now than they were six to 12 months ago, which means the pay-out to their partner is far less than it would have been.

This credit crunch has had different affects on people going through divorce.

My advice would be to try and buy your partner out if at all possible. Selling your property now would be financial suicide, whereas you could buy out your ex on a discounted rate (as I did) and then you’ll win in the long run.

Clive Bellmore

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As if the Child Support Agency don’t receive enough money from fathers, their employees have been rewarded with a massive share of the £128 million in bonuses that the government has handed out to civil servants last year. The Tories have branded this a ‘money for nothing culture’ and are said to be ‘horrified’ over the figures.

The CSA received £3.7 million in bonuses for its incompetent staff as part of the £36 million given to the Department for Work of Pensions, the same body that lost the personal data records of 25 Million people recently when they POSTED them through Royal Mail.

Tory MP Philip Hammond stated:

Many families finding themselves squeezed between stagnant earnings and soaring living costs will be horrified. With the Government failing on so many fronts, this looks like a ’something for nothing’ culture.

Michael Fallon, part of the Treasury Select Committee, found that the Revenue and Customs department was a pathetic failure.

It appears to be rewarding failure. Complaints about the tax credits system are at the highest level for five years and there has been a considerable deterioration in its VAT service.

Yet senior staff have received on average a 60 per cent increase in bonuses. These payments appear completely unjustified.

It’s good to know where all of our taxes are going isn’t it? Not only is our money being wasted and the people wasting it are incredulously incompetent, but they’re also being financially rewarded for inability to do their jobs.

Clive Bellmore

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