Family law in Brighton & Hove covers more kinds of family than the textbooks assume. Same-sex parents, co-parenting arrangements between friends, children born through surrogacy or donor conception, step-families and couples who never married but bought a flat together all come through the doors of the city's family solicitors, alongside the more familiar separations. The law has mostly caught up, but it still has to be applied carefully: parental responsibility does not arrive automatically for every parent, and a declaration of parentage or a parental order may be needed before anything else can be sorted out.
Children's arrangements are the bulk of the work. Before a parent can apply to the family court in Brighton, a mediation information and assessment meeting is normally required, and many local disputes go no further than the mediator's office. Where they do, the court decides where a child lives and how time is shared, with Cafcass reporting. Relocation disputes are common in a city full of people who came from somewhere else and may want to go back, and arrangements that work around one parent's London commute take some drafting.
Domestic abuse cases move fastest. A non-molestation or occupation order can be in place within days, and legal aid is available for it regardless of the applicant's means. Care proceedings brought by Brighton & Hove City Council also attract legal aid for parents. Couples who never married are the ones the law protects least; a declaration of trust when the flat is bought, or a cohabitation agreement, settles in advance what a court would otherwise have to guess at.
Most firms offer a fixed-fee first meeting and hourly rates for contested work.
The family firms serving Brighton & Hove are listed below, verified first. Read what family law covers, the general family law solicitors guide and, for the divorce or dissolution itself, divorce solicitors in Brighton & Hove.
