I am also a 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.

When my parents divorced in 1994 it had a profound effect on me. My mum got the house but didn’t have an income to live on whilst my dad kept his pension and salary, but he didn’t have anywhere to live. None of it made any sense to me at the time because, of course, I was young and naïve as I was finding my way in life at university. In 2000, I was working at KPMG, and a new concept was born – pension sharing. This was a revelation to me at the time, and I was tasked with helping with the consultancy and wording on the first one that was ever implemented on a KPMG Pension Manchester client at the time.

It opened my eyes to the fact that there had been an answer to the imbalance that had been created in my parents’ financial settlement all those years ago (it was just another 6 years in the making and so too late for them!). That fascination with financial settlements was born then and now I spend my time working on and in financial settlements on divorce trying to get to the best outcome.

By the way my parents managed to solve their financial problems post-divorce – my mum married someone with an income (a pension) and my dad married someone with a house.

These days we have a full suite of options to meet your needs, goals and objectives without (unless you want to) resorting to what my parents had to do.