Is it legal? Recorded on Phoenix FM on 5th April 2011, featuring Sebastian Burrows.
Podcast transcription:
Good evening welcome from me Scott Ross to a new show is it legal our new Tuesday evening feature dedicated to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding legal issues. The programme is brought to you in association with Sanders Witherspoon Solicitors of 51 Crown Street Brentwood and we are here until 7 o’clock this evening. Given the nature of the programme we just have to start with this oldie from the bobby fuller four. That was the bobby fuller four from way back from 1965 I think it was we just had to start with that one didn’t we. Now we are always being told that ignorance of the law is no excuse but one could perhaps be forgiven for feeling that that is a little bit of a cop out given that there is such a mind field of seemingly conflicting laws out there. The layman has been left floundering in no mans land. Whilst we can’t hope to answer everything the aim of this show is to try and listen to at least a corner of the veil each week although a different aspect of the kind of legal issues that we are all most likely to face at one time or another and this week we are going to be looking at Pre-Nuptial Agreements and we are very fortunate in having Sebastian Burrows from Sanders Witherspoon with us this evening so first of all a very good evening Sebastian, may I call you Seb it is a lot easier.
Of course you can Scott.
Welcome to Phoenix FM and perhaps we can start of with you giving us a brief overdue of just what constitutes a Pre-Nuptial Agreement.
Well a Pre-Nuptial Agreement is um a document designed to establish what will happen in the worst case. So you’re in love, the wedding is planned, the honeymoon is booked, you are all getting ready for the great day. A Pre-Nup is an unromantic document designed to sort you out if you discover that you don’t want to be married anymore. So um a Pre-Nup is something that the of you will enter into willingly together and it is set out clearly so that you both know when you stand on how all of your assets are going to be divided when the dreaded occasion happens. Right OK and exactly what can be included or excluded.
Right ok and exactly what can be included or excluded from this.
Well it depends very much on everyone’s different position we have all got different things, some people 17 houses, some people have none um all sorts of things can be included and excluded it doesn’t really matter as long it covers everything that is relevant to your relationship and your life it can go in it can be as complicated or as simple as you want it to be really.
Right but is there of any real items that can be excluded.
Well there are there are things that are unfair that has to be kept out and Pre-Nups are designed to replace the law on divorce really and this isn’t free reign to leave people in real trouble and the Courts will hate to see people left living in cardboard boxes under railway archers when they could be living in um comfort and safety so things that are unfair are out of the window but apart from that um really um as long as it is fair as long as it doesn’t leave people in trouble then there is a green light from the Court.
You say that it exactly replaces divorce.
Yeah, English Law is pretty cranky and um,
There’s a surprise hey!
…and divorce law isn’t a magical formula for deciding what is going to happen when you divorce and there are all sorts of things that it will consider and what a Pre-Nup is designed to do is to have that all sorted out beforehand rather than dealing with it afterwards, it is a bit of a spilt milk scenario.
So is a Pre-Nup actually set in stone and how binding are they.
They are pretty binding and this sort of leads me on to chatting for half an hour on the history of them and Pre-Nups have been around for quite a long time and um as far as the general public are concerned they are a bit of an America TV thing on Dallas and all sorts of things like that but they have crept over the Atlantic and they have existed in the rest of Europe for quite a long time as well but English law being as cranky as it is it has been pretty reluctant to look at them seriously but um they have been around and they have happened and they have worked and some have some haven’t but the big thing has happened quite recently with a couple that are divorced that have one and the case in the papers recently because the parties were so famous although their names weren’t particularly familiar and they were Catherine Radmacher and Nicholas Granatino who met in 1997 in London when they were in their 20’s but she is a German Heiress and he was a professional businessman in his own right and um they entered into a Pre-Nup together and um that case has set the law for the rest of us and we always refer back to that one but what happened in that case was that there was an enormous disagreement over the Pre-Nup that seemed pretty unfair to Mrs Radmacher and the Court wound its way up to the Supreme Court which now replaces the House of Lords and um the judgment was given and the judgment said that Pre-Nups are good so long as we jump over certain hurdles and satisfy some criteria so we have now got those criteria laid out before us which means that we can prepare Pre-Nups knowing what needs to go into them so that they can be as strong as possible so that they can act as they are intended to.
As I understand it I mean up until now that as far asEnglandwas concerned historically Pre-Nups have had no legal worth so how is that you just get one Court case all of a sudden.
Well that comes down again to the crankiness of English law and on the continent and in States and so on laws are already written down and in England just to be special we have got some written down and some not written down and we are all aware of statutes and the laws that make certain things illegal um the other side of the legal coin in this County is what is called precedents and that is what has happened in the Courts before and um in various topics different cases have gone through and it has been appealed high up and so we end up comparing legal principals and that is what has happened in Pre-Nups there is no written law that governs a Pre-Nup. There is law that governs what happens when you get divorced but with the Pre-Nup there is nothing so we are working on the basis of what law lords have said in the past and so that we now have this judgment in this Radmacher case we are more confident in the guidelines given by the Court and can operate under those knowing that however much the case is tested we can always rely on the fact that the law lords being the highest Judges in our land has said that they are ok so long as we um satisfy these criteria.
So the criteria that has got to be satisfied is what is here must be quite a complicated thing.
Well you couldn’t say but it is quite broad really and quite easily to satisfy in reality but um the biggest one is that a couple has to go into it voluntarily they both have to want this document so as scenario where um someone is pushing for one and the other one is dead set against it isn’t going to work they have both got to want it and um if anyone is bullying the other then there should be alarm bells ringing for everyone concerned and most of all the Lawyers.
But it might be a difficult to actually prove that someone is bullying I mean if two people have gone into this and later on one of them says they were bullied into it how on earth you know.
Well that is true and that is the difficulty with our job um we sometimes get people in front of us who say they were bullied and um it is very much one person’s word against the others but I will repeat it over and over again probably but the best trick is to go and get some sound legal advice and if you are really worried that you are being bullied then you can be helped and at the very least that can be recorded and it might protect you later if you end up signing one and you want to get out of it.
Now as I understand it also the law commission is due to consider whether any changes need to be made as regards to the letter of the law, in what way can you speculate as to what that might be or what they might do?
Um I don’t think they are going to do much, the cranky English law governs divorces yeh and we have got this case law now that helps us with Pre-Nups and how they should be there might be another one that comes along and fine tunes that law but as well as being cranky the English law is a bit like a Yorkshire man in that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. If it works then it is fixed.
Right ok well I hope you are right on that one. Right what about non-shared property and things and what happens if the parties of the agreements mortgages a piece of property without the knowledge and agreement of the other party.
This is a really silly area and one that really means people need to go and get some advice if they want a Pre-Nup or if they are thinking of getting married because this is an old trick people can hide houses and the other person never knows about it, it can be sold and accrue value and this is the muddy area that divorce law can be but um unshared property that you are not living in needs to be protected and um it is a real situation of trust and everyone trusts their fiancé and their husband or wife until it is too late yes and I don’t want to be a zoo monger but um people need to have their eyes wide open and that is one of the factors also that the Courts has set in Pre-Nups not only do you have to want the document you have got to know what you are agreeing to and what there is and that is another criteria the Courts wants everyone to share things openly with each other all the information is now on the table.
Ok so what happens if you enter a Pre-Nuptial Agreement and you don’t declare that maybe you have got a property that your partner doesn’t know anything about it is not then passably a Pre-Nuptial Agreement so what happens then.
No well then you are playing dirty and you are not being open and you are not being fair and so there are people out there well they are but the Court will now say following that whopping hearing that has set the tone the Court will say that you have not provided the information so your husband and your wife has been playing at a disadvantage and they couldn’t possibly be expected to be held by this document and you find yourselves tearing it up and going the normal route of the divorce Courts.
Ok and so what would happen how would the Pre-Nup change what would happen in a normal divorce.
Actually that is a brilliant question um divorce law is fiddly and there are all sorts of different variables that kick in when people want to get divorced and when they want to look at their finances and their assets. Now that area of the law is covered by statute and there are all sorts of checklists um the biggest considerations always of the family Courts are the children and the Court will want to make sure that any children in the family are provided for they need a home, they need the money to be able to clothe them to go to School and so that is the first port of call in terms of looking at the situation but divorce law looks primarily at people’s financial needs thinking about compensating them financially for the end of the marriage and sharing what there is or there isn’t. Now what a Pre-Nup will do is cut out the compensation and sharing and only really once consider needs so in the divorce Courts unless you and your husband or your wife are in complete agreement over how you want to divide things then there is going to a fiddly exercise of exploring exactly what there is in fine detail and then establishing how it is going to be divided to meet your needs in any terms of compensating you and sharing things out but also looking at the factors like how long you have been married and how much you came to the marriage with all these various factors and so it is a long winded fiddly process which is another reason why Pre-Nups become more and more attractive because if people know what they have now before they are married then they can decide together that they want to keep that if they get divorced and make the path very much smoother but it is important to do it carefully and satisfy those criteria that the Courts are putting in place and so um the difference is huge between Pre-Nups and divorce. Complex or straightforward but to get it straightforward it has to be done carefully.
Just a reminder you are tuned into is it legal the new legal advice programme brought to you by Sanders Witherspoon Solicitors of 51 Crown Street,Brentwood. We are here through to 7 o’clock this evening and we are talking to Sebastian Burrows who we are calling Seb from Sanders Witherspoon about these Pre-Nuptial Agreements and we were just talking about this earlier on and just having a look at if I didn’t have a Pre-Nup Agreement and I was going through a divorce at this point what would be the big difference, how would it differ from.
Well the Pre-Nups as we say Scott are there to try and make life easy and um however um optimistic people are when they are married and when they want to get married and even when they are thinking of getting divorced um things unfortunately regularly turn to difficulty and um the divorce process requires us to look at everything so that a division is fair and that is the starting point for the Court that it should be fair and considers the needs of any children that there are. There are all sorts of factors that the Court would want to look at and whether people end up going to Court or not um what the Court would do to guide us as Lawyers in advising clients on what needs to be looked at. As the divorce process can take three main routes really, not often people come to us and they know exactly what they want and they are um very lucky individuals who are still able to talk to each other and these divorces are few and far between and it is a delight to get them when people come to us and they say we have all been talking in the restaurant last night and we know what we want to do, we are going to sell the house, I am going to have this much, he is going to have that much and this is what we are going to arrange and that is fine and we can help people with that and make their lifes easy and we are not there to make their lifes difficult far from it. Well people take a little bit of persuading and minds need focusing and with a bit of information before them people can realise that the way forward is pretty clear and the prospect of a messy divorce as well as being expensive is more than anything traumatic and um it can take a long time and if a year is average I would be surprised, it can be much more than that, um and the trauma um deciding you want to get divorced and separate and break up a family is difficult enough not only for the Courts going to turn up and start knocking people on the heads and ordering things to be done and everything to be dredged up so negotiating things privately has to be the best way forward but sometimes it is just not possible and um Heather Mills and Paul McCartney will tell you well now it has been plastered all over the papers um sometimes it is impossible to avoid an argument and so Pre-Nups are there to try and avoid that but if the argument is impossible to avoid then we have to look at all sorts of things and um the biggest starter for us as Lawyers advising people who are in this situation is how long you have been married and um there is a big distinction in English cranky law that um looks at short marriages and long marriages and the case law that has gone past the precedent that we were talking about earlier that the Pre-Nups are governed by has established a short of golden milestone of 12 years and if you are lucky enough to have a 12 year or older marriage you have got a long term marriage. Anything below that is classed as a short term by the Courts and now what is the difference in this well in effect it gives us a starting point and long long term marriages mean that we start by presuming that everything should be split down the middle 50/50. Short term marriages less so and if it is really short if you got married in a hotel in America while on holiday drunk and you have come back and you decide it is a awful idea and you don’t want it anymore then you have got to wait until a year’s passed before you can get divorced and you are looking at a really short term marriage and the Courts will simply want to put you back in the situation you were in before you got married undo the nightmare.
You just touched on the children and surely if there are children you can’t just divide it 50/50 down the middle there is all sorts of other horrors and if that’s the case if you have a Pre-Nup agreement do you have to take into account the possibility that you might have children and how on earth do you you know you might have one child you might have exactly like the Waltons.
It is a brilliant point the thing is it is a tricky exercise drafting a Pre-Nup for someone who is their early 20’s who is getting married it is a romantic situation and they have got some assets they want to be clever they want to be careful and quite rightly they are being prudent but it would be impossible to anticipate every single eventuality in their lifes that might come along no-one knows whether they are going to encounter difficulties people might not to be able to have children or people might have children with very special needs that they couldn’t dream of um so it is important to be quite clever and open minded with a Pre-Nup and um as with Wills and things like this it is a good idea to look at it again and again and if in 10 years time you find yourself with 16 children then it will be a good idea to go back to your Solicitor and think about tweaking it openly with your spouse and getting it updated so that if the worse does happen you are protected all over again.
Right ok again I can’t quite see how you put together a Pre-Nup if you don’t know what your situation is going to be umpting years down the line so how do you pull that together.
Usually Pre-Nup clients know that they have something that they want to keep to themselves and often it is a bit of a cleeshay it inheritances things like this but the famous case that has set the tone for Pre-Nups for us involved that general area catching Radmacher and um one of the reasons that she wanted it was because she wanted to protect some family wealth and her father threatened to disinherit her if she married without an agreement and she wanted to be sure that her husband was marrying her for love rather than her money, so there are usually these scenarios beforehand that cause people to want a Pre-Nup. It is rare the people think right lets get married ooh lets get a Pre-Nup, the two don’t follow on from each other but it is also often the case that um people who are thinking about Pre-Nups are getting married for the second, third or even fourth times and um they have got things that they want to keep aside things that are secret to them yeh and equally on the other side the person they are marrying often has the same and to keep their lifes simple and to avoid unnecessary mess in the future they want to earmark those, usually it is houses, inheritances and things like that.
So would you say that a Pre-Nuptial Agreement is probably more sensible for someone who is going through a second or third marriage rather than a first marriage because they won’t even know what they are looking at?
Well I think that is a good question as well. I think the people who are getting married for the second time have always been through a divorce and they have learnt the hard way yeh and I think everyone else can learn from their mistake and their experience and um a Pre-Nup I think is not particularly romantic but I think it is quite prudent and I think that if a couple want to be sensible about things and trust each other then it shouldn’t be an issue and um a Pre-Nup can save them an enormous amount of heartache in the future and can clear up any mysteries, often people don’t know quite everything about each other but go through the Pre-Nup process will lay everything out in the table, people know where they stand and everyone can then relax and get on with building their marriage, building their family and carrying on their lifes together and hopefully it will never need to be used.
It still seems a very odd situation in English Law that uh there always looks a bit of skittles uh it is now taking the precedent of an agreement between a jell and um a French person.
It is true that’s the very odd it is that’s the funniness of English law and it takes a german airess and a French businessman to move to London to set out their lifes together to give us some law and we are very grateful to do this because it has made our lifes easier but the English law is sort of firmly routed in uh tradition and um in that case in the Supreme Court there were nine Lord Justices who were giving their judgments and the only dissenting one the only Judge who was against the idea of letting them be approved was um the only female Judge on the bench right and um she wanted to stick by the principals of marriage meaning um the complete sharing of everything and that a Pre-Nup went deflu in the face of that and sort the tradition of marriage right it comes down to a question of opinion.
Ok thanks for that well uh just a quick reminder that you are listening to the very first edition of is it legal here onBrentwoodand Billericay’s very own local radio station Phoenix 98 FM. Is it legal is brought to you in association with Sanders Witherspoon Solicitors of 51 Crown Street,Brentwoodand we are here until 7 o’clock this evening. I am Scott Ross and for our first programme in this new series I have been joined by Sebastian Burrows whose talking all about the Pre-Nuptial Agreements so we will come back to that in just a moment but right now why don’t we have uh some music this is curiosity killed the cat. Is it legal with Sanders Witherspoon Solicitors Brentwood. Well curiosity killed the cat there and uh down to earth well curiosity won’t kill the cat today because we are looking at legal aspects concerning uh Pre-Nuptial Agreements uh with Sebastian Burrows from um Sanders Witherspoon just down here atCrown StreetinBrentwood. Now Seb what if I am already married.
It’s not too late Scott!
I can do one?
You can do one you can squeeze one in.
Ok if I do that do I are there any differences how would it be,
Although there would be of course because it is not going to be a Pre-Nup so you are not anticipating getting married it’s not before the event it is after the event but what that helpful case in the Supreme Court has done for us is all the way through its judgment talked about Nuptial Agreements not pre not post just Nuptial Agreements, Agreements that concern your marriage so you can have one after you have got married if you want to and it can cover everything from now on and you can decide things that you acquired in the past, share them or keep things to yourselves from now on and uh it really is a tailored made suit a Nuptial Agreement pre or post and it can be adapted to suit you for whatever you want it for but imagine you and your wife now have been made aware of Nuptial Agreements then you think actually that might be quite clever we want to be cautious we don’t want to find ourselves going through that traumatic process if we all of a sudden decide that we want to live on other sides of the globe you can do that and as long as it meets needs as long as it sees you both safe and able to live then it will be alright that we will be guided by those principals that the Court have set down again and you will need to share everything with each other just as much as you would have done had you only met a year before on a beach.
So if I understand you correctly you’re probably shoot me down in flames here if um the best agreements might well be (a) for people who are marrying the second and third time around um and also people who are already married because they know god anyway so people actually who are just getting married it might not be so attractive for them.
Exactly um the first timers I think are always gonna be the ones that are gonna be the hardest, they are gonna find it the hardest to swallow a Pre-Nuptial Agreement they really are the people who probably need it most um but people who are already married um can use it as a legal tool to help them out in the future if they need to and this is where the Pre-Nup really comes in to existence as a bit of an insurance policy document uh they will be prepared, people get involved in preparing them give all of their information ready share it with each other they discuss what they want to do if they do separate or divorce, they prepare this document and it’s the climax that are bit of a legal process and then that it is nothing happens they get married and they forget about it, it is stuffed in their drawer at home and Solicitors keep a copy of it just in case uh um and it is never touched again hopefully, it only comes out at the very last moment but for people who have already been married it is a bit of an alternative to uh another tool that we can use called a Separation Agreement uh um and if you and your wife have got to decide that you do want to get divorced then uh you could say to each other well we want to get divorced now it is a bit late to draw up a Nuptial Agreement in the event that we might get divorced it is going to happen, what you can get done then is something called a Separation Agreement and say to each other right well we might not want to get divorced this week but it is on the cards, we are in no rush but we do want to but we are going to draw a document up that sets out what we want to do we are going to sell the house, split it 50/50 and I’m going to keep my collection of antique cars and you are going to keep your 15 miles worth of wardrobes full of priceless clothing and clothes.
Well I can see that the only thing is I suppose you are almost getting to the point where you said that some people get divorced and they have already got an idea situation because they come to you and say hey we have now chatted this over and we have got that this that and the other. In that case you wouldn’t need to have one of these Agreements because they have already effectively done it or you say you do this as an insurance policy because whether you actually come to divorce it might not be so amicable.
No exactly there are all sorts of things that trigger needing a divorce in the first place and um it’s very rare the people say that they have simply fallen out of love and they want to end their marriage because one of them fancies leaving in Austria uh um visits some friends and the other wants to go their way but um those situations have to be about 1% of life where the others often find themselves facing a divorce satiation because they have been left or they want to set up life with someone else all sorts of different reasons and uh it’s a big shock to the other person usually and it causes a lot of bitterness and the good Solicitors role is to try and um steam that bitterness and uh focus finds and pave the way through a really choppy sea to the calm waters on the other side.
Ok let’s assume for the sake of argument that I had an agreement but it was drafted 10 years ago or not just drafted but it was written and there it is in stone. Now I am not sure that I would have as I am assuming it didn’t exist them.
Well they were around and brave Solicitors knew about them from watching TV and knowing about them abroad and in the States and in Europe but say you are brave Solicitor in this Country was persuaded to prepare you a Pre-Nup 10 years ago but it won’t have had the luxury of the guidance of the Courts that we were working on now from 2010 onwards and so it would be a good idea to get that revisited, looked at again and make sure that it um that it covers everything that it needs to and if it does then fine and if doesn’t then you can prepare another one an update and make sure that it does deal with everything because 10 years ago you might have been in a very different situation from the one you are in now and it would be a good idea to make the tool work properly. There is no point having something that doesn’t work as you want it to.
Ok let’s assume that actually you don’t have much in terms of um assets etc why would you bother.
Well that’s a good question and Pre-Nups are often seen as things for the rich things for superstars and um often superstars and the very rich want them because they are in their minds and they are to some extent a sort of legal fashion but they are just as useful for people who have very little and people who have normal lives with normal assets and a bit of equity in their house perhaps um and some savings if they are lucky enough uh um um but Pre-Nups can deal with dividing things that you don’t have as well and um if you are married then even if your credit card is in your name then um it means that your husband or your wife is just as much um aware of it and responsible for it because you are married and your Pre-Nup might say that um whatever debts you have racked up you keep and whatever debts I have racked up I keep them, they can cover things like that as well.
Debts as well?
Well yeh,
Well that can be interesting specially the way my wife spends. Well to see you and your partner have decided to go about entering a Pre-Nuptial Agreement so how do you go about it and what does it costs that is the real.
It’s the most important question really for some people and um it’s gotta be a factor people can afford it, people can’t afford it but um hopefully Solicitors will be able to help everyone in every sorts of situation but generally speaking to get the ball rolling what the two of you need to do is to think about it a little before you are marriage and um the famous German Heiress case has suggested that married couples need to do it at least 21 days before they get married so that there is no pressure so that the job can be done without rushing and so everyone feels that they are able to relax about it but what I think the best thing to do would be to get together all your financial details and go and see your Solicitor one of you by yourself and explain what the two of you have agreed then that Solicitor can draft that document up for you and wing it to your fiancé and he or she can look at it as well, get some legal advice and see whether that reflects what you have agreed but in reality the costs of it um is probably gonna be in the region of about £1,000 and it sounds like
£1,000?
Well it sounds like a big lump but I mean you can plug it into Google I am sure and find it for a few quid perhaps.
Well I have seen it in there for £25 and £46 so there will still be a big difference between the two.
There is and I haven’t looked at those so I don’t want to comment on them but I would imagine that they are pretty straightforward things and don’t well deal with the nitty gritty and what a Pre-Nup does need to do is deal with the fine details it needs to deal with your relationship and your situation and your assets and your needs and everything about you as a couple and it’s not some tick box document that can be completed and you could probably spend £25 quid on the internet and get one done but I can bet you £25 quid that it won’t stand up in 15 years when the situation has changed and so £1,000 for a Pre-Nup represents quite a lot of work really and quite a lot of investigating behind the scenes to produce a document for you and your fiancé but will serve well as a tool and as an insurance document that you can keep in your bottom drawer in the event that you need to and hopefully you won’t need to but um £1,000 really is a guide and hopefully it won’t cost anymore than that but put it into respective if in 15 years you discover that your um your husband or your wife has um been leading a double life that you knew nothing of and comes as a complete shock to you then uh if the two of you can’t agree what you want, if your husband or wife that has been leading their double life turns out to be the person you didn’t think they were and is avoiding everything and refusing to share anything then you are looking at a legal process that can be very small or go the full length as McCartney and Mills experienced and that process can last a year a year and a half and can cost you anything up to about £25,000 if you are unlucky so that’s
…well’s that at today’s prices so…
That’s at today’s prices so in 15 years…
It could cost a lot more.
That could be £250,000.
So looking at it this way £1,000 against £25,000?
Yeh,
Is that £25,000 each or £25,000 per couple?
It is potentially £25,000 each and in reality it don’t often cost that much but if there is a real problem then none of us can anticipate what is going to happen in our lives if there is a real problem it could do but going to Court several times sitting in front of a Judge answering questions giving information and hiring Barristers to help you out and Lawyers to assist in you trying to get what is fair for you is not an easy or quick process.
Well Seb what can I say think you very much indeed…
It has been my pleasure.
You have given us all a hell of a lot to think about um but I am afraid that clock is uh is beating us um so this just about wraps it up for the first edition of is it legal which is brought to you in association with Sanders Witherspoon Lawyers of Brentwood and Shenfield as well I should say of um 51 Crown Street here in Brentwood now and thanks very much for being our first victim Seb.
Thank you it has been my pleasure.
I am sure that many people have found your advice or Pre-Nuptial Agreements have been invaluable.
Well I hope so and if they need anymore they know where to come.
And I hope you will come back and see us again.
We certainly shall yeah.
Next week uh the subject will be starting a business and to discuss this I will be joined by Jonathan Cobb and if you have any questions on the subject why not e-mail them to us at uh radio@phoenixfm.com. I am Scott Ross. I look forward to being with you at the same time next week but right now lets play out with a rather appropriate American hit by John Mya and Taylor Swift this is called half of my heart bu-bye. Is it legal with Sanders Witherspoon Solicitors, Brentwood.
