Another week, another family judge laments the legal fees incurred in a case which, in his view, should never have got to court in the first place.
In the words of Deputy District Judge David Hodson in P v P (treatment of costs in sharing cases) [2022] EWFC 158
“… [This] was a case which should never have got to Form A, let alone a final hearing, yet total costs in excess of £150,000 had been incurred when the asset base gross of legal costs was less than £1 million and notwithstanding that the respondent was in person from sometime before the FDR.”
So over 15% of the family’s net assets were spent on legal fees arguing about how those assets should be divided.