When a marriage with real assets ends, two divorces happen at once: the legal dissolution, and the financial reconstruction of two lives from one balance sheet. The second one is this entire website. Irish law runs it on three pillars — proper provision, sworn disclosure, and judicial discretion — and understanding all three is the difference between a settlement that holds and one that haunts.
The Three Pillars
Proper provision, not fixed shares: the court’s statutory obligation is that proper provision exists for spouses and dependent children, assessed through the section 20 factors — there is no automatic half, and no clean-break doctrine ending things forever. Sworn disclosure: the Affidavit of Means puts every asset, income and liability on oath, with discovery and forensic machinery behind it — the foundation everything is negotiated on. Judicial discretion: outcomes are fact-driven and structural — which is precisely why the asset-specific pages exist: the business, the farm, the pensions, the inheritance each behave differently under the same Act.
How These Cases Actually Resolve
Mostly by settlement — negotiated on full disclosure, structured with tax input from the accountants (we never advise on tax; we make sure it’s advised on), and ruled by the court, which must satisfy itself on provision either way. The working method here: disclosure first, honest arithmetic in writing second, prepared-for-hearing throughout — because the case built as if for the courtroom settles best, and the few that must be fought are ready. Mediation is genuinely on the table from the start (the Mediation Act requires the advice; the Diploma means it comes from knowledge), and the in-camera rule keeps all of it private. Timing questions — the two-years-in-three requirement, divorce versus judicial separation — are mapped on the Living Apart Calculator in two minutes.
Substantial Assets, Serious Questions?
One confidential call: the assets, the honest range, the disclosure plan and the settlement shape - before anyone commits to anything.
Call 01 5827148