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My husband and his ex are to attend mediation soon to see if they can reach an agreement regarding contact. At my husbands individual session (he has had two now :unsure: ) the mediator implied that any consent order drawn up needs to be paid for by the applicant i.e. him. The court proceedings are ongoing, so it is completely necessary that any agreement reached needs to be made into a consent order. His ex is paying for a solicitor and he is self representing.
I'm quite confused as to whether or not a consent order does have to be paid for by my husband as what I have read online suggests there are no set rules and it can be paid for by either party or costs ssupport. For my husband to be soley responsible for paying for a consent order seems quite unreasonable (in my opinion), as it is an agreement reached between two people, so surely both should be responsible for paying? Plus the consent order will cost near enough the amount of the court application!
What I believed may happen was that if an agreement were reached, her solicitor would draw up the consent order and they would share the cost.
I can't help but worry about the financial side of things, the costs seem to be mounting up! He will not be exempt as he earns a fairly good wage but our essential outgoings are rather high and we also have two young children to support.
Does anyone have any knowledge of this???
It would be worth contacting the coram's childrens legal centre for free legal advice to clarify this - http://www.childrenslegalcentre.com - they can be very busy at times, so persistance is necessary. I would have thought that since there is a case already ongoing, the consent order would be part of this, and no further charges would be payable, but I could be wrong on this.
Hi there
If there is an ongoing case going through the family court concerning contact issues, the only charge would be the initial fee to submit the Child Arrangements Order application, which is £215. Whichever party makes the application, i.e. the applicant would be responsible for paying the fee.
If agreement is reached at mediation, and there is a case already open, the agreement can be put in writing and presented to the court to request that a consent order be made....this wouldn't cost extra. However if agreement is reached the court might decide that no order is required as you have reached agreement yourselves through mediation.
Where a consent order is required for financial matters in a divorce settlement, I believe there is a charge of £50 for that.
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