Charlotte Skea-Strachan > Payne Hicks Beach LLP > London, England > Lawyer Profile

Charlotte Skea-Strachan

Work Department

Family

Position

Charlotte is a legal director in the Family department with a wealth of experience in advising clients on all issues arising throughout their relationships that affect them and their children, including pre- and mid-nuptial agreements, divorce, co-habitation, complex financial disputes and jurisdictional issues.  She is also well versed in private children matters, including with whom children are to live and spend their time, and applications for leave for children to move to a different country. Many of her cases have an international element and regularly involve high net worth individuals, often with complicated company or trust structures.

Cases of interest include:

• MY v FY (2020) EWFC 48 (17 July 2020) – acting for the mother in a continuation of Children Act proceedings with regard to unsupervised contact between the father and the youngest son, following an incident between the father and one of the elder sons. 

• Owens v Owens (2018) UKSC 41 (25 July 2018) Supreme Court – representing the wife, Tini Owens.  This case has led to the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020, which introduced ‘no fault’ divorce in England and Wales.

• Alireza v Radwan & Ors (2017) EWCA Civ 1545 (12 October 2017) (Court of Appeal) – acting for the wife in her successful appeal against a financial remedies order which had allowed her and the children to occupy their home on a time-limited basis only. 

• Owens v Owens (2017) EWCA Civ 82 (24 March 2017) (Court of Appeal) – representing the wife in an unsuccessful appeal of a first instance decision that the client was not entitled to a divorce, and therefore unable end her marriage.

• FY v MY & Ors (2016) EWFC 16 (23 March 2016) – acting for the mother in long running Children Act proceedings in the High Court, following the mother successfully defending the father’s previous application that the children move to live with him in Dubai. 

• NR v AB, BCO Ltd, MB and LB [2016] EWHC 277 (Fam), (2016) EWHC 277 (Fam) – acting for the wife in a complex financial remedy case in the High Court, including inherited assets, a potential nuptial settlement and significant assets outside England and Wales.

• SJ v RA and RF (2014) EWHC 4054 (4 December 2014) – acting for the wife in the final hearing of long running proceedings as to the division of assets after a 40 year marriage, including commercial and residential property, a housing development site and shares in a private family Company.

• Shield v Shield (2014) EWCA Civ 1136 (3 July 2014) (Court of Appeal) – acting for the wife on her son’s unsuccessful application for permission to appeal of the judgment in the below case.

• Shield v Shield (2014) EWHC 23 – acting for the wife on the hearing of a preliminary issue to determine whether her husband’s shareholding in the family business was held on trust for his son, who was intervening in the proceedings. 

Career

Charlotte trained at Charles Russell, qualifying in 2002.  She joined Payne Hicks Beach in 2006 and was made senior associate in 2015.

Memberships

Resolution (formerly the Solicitors’ Family Law Association)

Education

St. Anne’s College, Oxford (MA); Oxford Institute of Legal Practice