Needs budgets

 

Absolute Analysis can be used to undermine the other side’s Needs budget by demonstrating their actual spend, versus what they say they spend. It can also be used to develop a credible and defensible Needs budget for the client by examining actual spend and using this as a preliminary basis for needs.

 

Challenging the asserted Needs of the other party

A party’s Needs budget is an estimate of how much he or she spends and expects to spend each year. Because Courts allow the Needs to be “generously interpreted”, a party might deliberately inflate his/her Needs to a significant extent.

While exaggeration can be a negotiating stance, allowing room for compromise in the inevitable horse-trading, if unchallenged it can have a profoundly distorting effect on future maintenance or the value of a Duxbury fund.

A report from Absolute Analysis which summarises the bank and credit card expenditure can undermine the other side’s frequently exaggerated estimates of expenditure, allowing the legal team to substitute a more realistic budget based on actual spend.

 

Preparing a Needs budget

A detailed analysis of the client’s actual spend, using bank and credit card statements, ensures that the Needs budget covers every aspect of expenditure. Additionally, because the sums proposed in the Needs budget are based on reality rather than guesswork, they can be defended in a negotiation.

This is vital in any financial settlement because the budget forms the basis for a party’s maintenance claim, or the calculation of the capital sum for a “clean break”, known as the Duxbury fund.