Anest Mathias

About

Anest is a Senior Associate in the Family and Relationship Team with more than 20 years’ post-qualification experience.

She advises clients across the full spectrum of family law matters, including divorce, financial remedy proceedings, child arrangements, cohabitation disputes, domestic abuse injunctions and cases with an international element.

Alongside her wider family law practice, Anest is a recognised specialist interest in fertility, surrogacy and modern parenting law.

She has acted in some of the most significant declaration of parentage cases to come before the courts.

Both the late Sir James Munby, former President of the Family Division, and Lord Justice Jackson sitting in the Court of Appeal have described Anest’s cases as unprecedented.

Her cases are regularly cited in The Family Court Practice and have been reported in the national media.

Anest advises heterosexual and same sex couples as well as individuals creating their family with third party assistance.

She acts for all parties to surrogacy and donor arrangements, ensuring a child’s legal parenthood reflects the intentions everyone held before conception.

She has also represented clients whose clinic refused to provide treatment on welfare of the child grounds.

Anest advises on a wide range of matters, including:

• Divorce and dissolution of civil partnerships and the financial arrangements that follow
• Schedule 1 Children Act 1989 applications
• Property disputes between unmarried partners
• Child arrangements, including cases involving allegations of domestic abuse (including coercive and controlling behaviour), alienating behaviours or fabricated or induced illness (FII)
• Relocation of children, both within the UK and internationally
• Injunctions to prevent domestic abuse, including obtaining and resisting occupation orders
• Surrogacy, including international surrogacy
• Declarations of parentage
• Parentage following donor conception
• Platonic co-parenting arrangements and agreements

Anest represents clients from a diverse range of backgrounds. Many of her cases revolve around cross-border matters, both in child arrangements and in financial cases where assets are held in different jurisdictions.

She tailors her approach to each client, working collaboratively wherever possible but taking a robust and assertive stance when that best serves the client.

Anest is ranked individually by both Chambers and Partners and The Legal 500. Chambers and Partners ranks her in Band 3 for Family/Children Law (London Firms) and for Family/Children Law: International Abduction, Adoption and Surrogacy.

The Legal 500 lists her as a Leading Associate for both Family: children and Family: divorce and financial remedy, with peers describing her as “meticulous and thorough but also empathetic and kind”.

Professional qualifications and memberships

• Solicitor, England and Wales
• Family Law Advanced Panel Accredited

Recent work

• Acted for a mother on appeal after she had been refused permission to relocate to a European country, having previously instructed another firm. The appeal succeeded and the mother was ultimately given permission to relocate.
• Represented the mother of adopted children in financial proceedings. Following a business valuation, the client secured all of the parties’ liquid assets so that the housing needs of the mother and children could be met.
• Acted for a company director and shareholder with a London business and a property portfolio spanning England and Spain.
• Acted for wives in financial remedy cases where their location needed to be kept confidential, including obtaining a surveyor’s report with the property address withheld.
• Obtained capitalised child maintenance in a financial remedy case where the husband’s immigration status was uncertain.

Reported cases

• Re M [2013] EWHC 1901 (Fam) (declaration of parentage)
• Re A and others (Legal Parenthood: Written Consents) [2015] EWHC 2602 (Fam) (legal parenthood following donor conception)
• Re the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (Case O) [2016] EWHC 2273 (Fam) (declaration of parentage and revocation of adoption order)
• Re C (Parental Alienation; Instruction of Expert) [2023] EWHC 345 (Fam) (instruction of experts)
• The Mother v The Father [2023] EWHC 2078 (Fam) (costs)
• C v B [2023] EWFC 293 (B) (alienation)
• U v E [2024] EWFC 39 (jurisdiction under the 1996 Hague Convention)
• P v Q & Ors [2024] EWFC 85 (B) (declaration of parentage)
• P v Q & Ors [2024] EWCA Civ 878 (declaration of parentage, Court of Appeal)