URGENT Pre-Trial Hearing turned into a Final Hearing with 5 days to go

[cannotseeanend]

Hi there

I am self representing, husband fled to UK leaving me behind in another EU country with 4 kids. I have a maintenance order from the EU country he refuses to comply with and pays 1/3 of the order and has spent last year failing through many appeals to annul the order. He now owes over 30k.

First problem, is that our jointly owned house was rented. He threw the lovely tenant out, without my consent, I couldn't stop, she had months of harassment and decided that was it, she couldn't cope with him any more. After 4 months a vandalism, my husband finally agreed to hand over keys. I asked court to force him, they never answered, despite paying £150 on a D11 to rule and give back keys. In that house are essential documents which prove my life savings. I need them for any court hearing. I am coming to the UK next week to finally get them.

Second problem is that my husband, the petitioner in financial remedy, has failed to follow a single court order. 1 month late and 1/3 answered questionnaire. 2 months late narrative. 6 months late financial disclosure.

Third problem is my husband cleared out the bank accounts, spent 100k, 32k was the children's money. It has meant me unable to get any legal aid, any free legal help, have had to take a bank loan and still not sure if barrister under direct access will represent me.

Fourth problem is the court itself who do not read or reply to correspondence. 4 weeks ago came a court order for a Pre Trial Review. To sort out issues such as ownership of the children's bank accounts - my husband wants them included as family assets and the percentage divided between us with these assets, but refuse to accept these children's bank accounts as his part, of course not, they are in the childdren's names till adulthood and no guarantee the children will hand over their money. OTher issues like receiving financial disclosure only 2 weeks ago. Other issues like I don't have confirmed legal representation. Other issues like my husband is refusing to pay maintenance and owes so much.

Today a bombshell. The other district judge contradicted the one who ordered the Pre Trial Review and say in 5 days time there will be a final hearing.

1. there is no agreed court bundle
   
2. there has never been a hearing for dispute resolution, only a single first hearing
   
3. I have no confirmed legal rep, he has direct access barrister
   
4. so many issues the other judge recognized needed settling, most important of which is children's savings and court bundles, before there can be a final hearing
   
   Help me please
   
   I have spent weeks trying to phone Rights of Women etc, my MP in the UK etc, trying every source of legal help over the past 18 months.
   
   I am facing a final hearing with ZERO.
   
   
   
   My other problem is that my husband has a list of 20 items such as payslips, bank statements, credit card statements, all missing from his financial disclosure. He has succeeded in going from initial hearing to final hearing with nothing in between. But he will not finish his financial disclosure, I've waited 6 months for the missing items and got an adjournment (I had to pay for) due to lack of these items.

[cannotseeanend]

PS I have offered settlement of 51% of family assets TO HIM. He has refused and wants another few percentage, only 14k more but 14k I cannot get. I have no-one to loan from and no means of paying back.

I think offereing 51% is far too much, but still he refuses.

[TeapotDictator]

This all sounds horrendous for you. I would say your priority is getting a barrister sorted. When do you arrive in the UK; shortly before your court hearing? I imagine that a DA barrister is not going to want to get involved in all the paperwork and it sounds as though the paperwork is key here.

Where is your hearing? If it's in London I have used a very good McKenzie Friend I could recommend. I have also used direct access barristers but it sounds as though you need someone cheaper who isn't going to mind getting totally stuck in at the last minute.

[Mumblechum1]

Get an emergency application for an adjournment in today. Copy in the other side and ask if they'll consent but don't wait for their consent before applying for the adjournment.

[cannotseeanend]

I already made an application for adjournment. What can I do? It's the same and only judge this week, he has refused the adjournment and has decided his opinion stands and the last judge who set the pre trial hearing he has ignored.

The paperwork is actually all there, it is my husband refusing to accept it in the bundle - like the proof of adultery, proof of beatings, proof he left me a year after claimed, proof he promised to pay X Y and Z and then now doesn't pay, the court orders from MY country, so so much he won't put in the bundle.

The judge will NOT Adjourn. I can do nothing. It is hopeless.

I cannot get the pro bono unit to respond or Rights of Women or anybody really. I just do not know where to turn. Foreign spouses are stuffed.

[cannotseeanend]

I tried to move the case to London, sadly I didn't even get a response. I got silence. It took 4 months to even answer the last D11, by which time events had made it half irrelevant.

The judge doesn't even know the difference between a DA barrister and a lawyer, he wrote yesterday that BOTH lawyers must agree to the change BACK to pre trial hearing, I wrote back to say again that there are no lawyers, that one side, my husband has a DA barrister and that I am not sure and have tried and tried to get contact with a DA barrister for myself.

On top of that, I have to hold down a full time job and 4 kids and then travel to the UK 2 days before the hearing which is still FH and even if I get the barrister, will he be there? Will I have to pay for a full day if the judge finally decides to turn it into the pre trial hearing listed originally so I thought? It is hell and worse. Why me. It is so hard doing this, my poor friends cannot help.

[TeapotDictator]

From my understanding you will pay the DA barrister no matter how long or short the day is. Why are you not clear whether you will have a barrister or not? Surely the best thing to do is hire someone and get through next week. How come you have tried and tried to get a DA barrister with no success?

[Mumblechum1]

Documents about adultery, DV etc will not be included in a bundle for a financial hearing, so you're wasting your time on that aspect I'm afraid.

The court is only interested in the arithmetic, presuming that you are talking about a financial hearing??

[cannotseeanend]

the documents are relevant because he stole 34000 pounds and also blocked bank accounts as part of the DV and he doesn't want them included.

He also won't include the papers from the home country about competency of court and the home country court have waited a long time for this.

Yes it was supposed to be pre-trial hearing, now suddenly FH.

I have finally secured a barrister, so so difficult when doing this from abroad.

It's the same judge who refused to accept a huge dossier proving I was in hospital having emergency surgery and place a penal order on me for failing to comply!!!!! Yes he refused an adjournment. He also told me to travel to the UK when at the time I had no valid passport to travel. He told me to come anyway. I do not get this UK justice. Why do people in hospital have to travel?

[JillyR2015]

It is a big mess and the difference in the positions between both sides is £14k. That is the bottom line. Not nice for you at all.

I am glad you have secured a barrister. Very often hearings end up changing - you think it is to be final and then it isn't so you have to pay the barrister for yet another hearing so don't be surprised if the court despite what this judge has said decides that as they do not have enough information about your husband's savings and income that the hearing is just ordering him to do things and there is then another hearing you have to pay for.

I thought that if a spouse spends money whoever it belongs to that then reduces the total marital pot to be split. That is very unfair but it tends to be the law so the history of who took what from whom is irrelevant. The children's money I suppose might be yours or his just put in their names and I presume one or other of you can use it when it's needed - is it a lot?

If £14k is all that divides you could you not offer him £7k but paid in 6 months' time or something like that by which time you might have saved it so be done with all these hearings and have a final consent order which the judge has to rubber stamp at the hearing?

I think you wanted more of the capital because he has not paid and wll not pay outstanding and future maintenance and I would certainly try to argue for more capital at the hearing if you can given his poor performance.

If there are jurisdictional issues you both could easily spend more than then £14k which divides you on lawyers arguing about which courts should decide wo I would try to avoid bringing that in if you can. Stick to a very very few and simple points. Most clients want to put everything but the ktichen sink and it tends to sink their legal position sadly. Yes you both hate each other and he behaved badly but divorce law is without fault in the UK and they are just divying up what is left of the few spoils here. Try to get an order that you control an immediate house sale if you want a sale of it.

[cannotseeanend]

I did offer him the difference between the 14k and 0 and his response was a threat of police. I don't have that extra 7k to even give him. He started wanting 132k, then went up to 135k, then down to 123k, where I am 14k off. I have upped offers 35k, he has gone down 12k. I have gone down yet again. I get a police threat for daring to email him the offer for a very polite email.

I have seen emails to friends describing me in awful awful words. I have kept my head held up high, not that the judge will care at all about his conduct. The police threats I've had over the years, the name calling, when he actually beat me up, it was far easier to take, it was over within minutes, the name calling used to last for days and I know tomorrow he'll still be name calling me and I am very scared for my personal safety inside chambers even.

I don't want a house sale. I want a house to live in. It's him wanting to sell the house and leave his kids without a home and security, to pay for the house he's occupied secretly (mesher order in lover's favour) for over a year, he says "you'll make us f..king homeless, give me more money" said by man who happily buys his lover 3.5k in diamonds and is able to afford to eat out 4 times a week, whilst simultaneously depriving his children of an above poverty line existence and getting into 32k of maintenance debt.

Sorry my mind is everywhere and so scared we'll lose our home tomorrow, when I haven't got all documents and what I have, I've had no opportunity to talk to barrister in depth, only on phone, but at least I finally have a barrister.

Yes I certainly will be arguing that 48% of the assets which is what I have come down to, with him taking 52% of assets, it's really really awful he's forced me to offer this out of court and I am certainly not offering this amount in the court room. I have only asked in fact for 60% of assets, ie the house, he'd get the other 40%, ie the savings and other assets (not the kids' savings, the ones intended for us, plus endowments plus car he "stole" from us almost 2 years ago and refused to let me share and he's used it exclusively since then). I feel that really he should get less than 40% but I do not know how this will go down, simply because of the huge debt of 32k in maintenance already. I do not believe I will ever succeed in getting him to pay regular maintenance. He cannot hide, given his job, but he's made it clear he will fight all attempts on my part to force him to pay any maintenance, he just does not think he has any moral responsibility for our large number of kids, he actually believes they are my responsibility alone, he has accused me of raping him, accused me of forced marriage, told me how much he has always disliked me etc etc . He has been very abusive and my only response has been my silence and lack of response but me getting so upset at these comments he frequently made to me, to friends, in front of kids.

My husband has reduced the marital pot by 35k by spending on diamonds etc but is insisting money saved for 2 decades in children's name, including a child who is an adult, MUST be included as marital pot money AND he is also refusing to accept any of this money in settlement, because of course the adult child and his 25% of this money, he'll never get off him, refusing the accept the 35% in child trust fund of another child, because he'll never get that too.

I am quite happy to include the savings made NOT in the children's name, which come to actually more than the children's savings. For me it is a moral argument, but it appears it is not a legal one. The other EU country is quite clear, that my husband would never ever have been able to touch the children's money, I am so shocked that money in children's names for 2 decades can suddenly be seen as belonging to my husband.

[TeapotDictator]

How did it go today?

[JillyR2015]

In the UK a parent can draw the children's savings out to spend on them, their food even. It very often is almost the only cash both parents have access too. Also a good few people put assets into chidlren's names to avoid tax and to keep it away from a spouse. The English courts have even sometimes broken off shore trusts to give the other spouse a share.
Anyway how did it go?

It sounds like the sooner it's over the better so you can forget about each other and just live a life with all this in the past.

[cannotseeanend]

well he refused all out of court very reasonable offers, then dropped a huge change in strategy, demanding 45% of EVERYTHING, meaning every single asset be divided AND I take a useless asset. He ended up with 35k LESS than he wanted, I have our home. It was so so stressful, I had only a few minutes consultation with a barrister I'd never met, I forgot to tell him a lot - like "did you now know lover has 2 jobs???" answer from barrister "no you didn't tell me" oops. Incredible how low some barristers stoop to, saying deliberate lies to provoke a reaction, questions which if he were under oath he couldn't ask as he knew they were lies. Guess it's just part of their job, but this is children's lives, I just expected some morality.

I didn't get all my kids' savings ring fenced but some of them I did. In the end, it didn't matter, I got 62% / 38% split for a very very long marriage, on 4 grounds, first ground being petitioner's behaviour in deliberately spending marital assets and admitting he'd deliberately deprived his own children as a punishment for the fall-out meaning he has no friends from his former life at all.

It sounds stupid, but the admission of adultery and the judge's acceptance and statement that the petitioner lied to get a divorce, in misrepresenting the date of separation and invalidating ALL examples in his divorce petition, his admission he had behaved terribly towards me and the children, this mattered as much to me as the settlement.

It has restored my faith in English justice, as dealing with the court before the hearing from abroad was so difficult and the court failed to print out crucial documents and led to some heated discussions about the lack of order in the court bundle and gaps in financial disclosure - not only the fault of the petitioner but also with 5 days to prepare, not at all surprising.

I couldn't have gotten through it without sounding off here.

I have come out hoping he won't exercise his rights of appeal (he's done it half a dozen times and failed every time against maintenance he still doesnt pay in full and is still fighting and of course I'm again the respondent in that case too) and convinced that Final Hearing System is the absolute worst way of dividing assets. I felt like a criminal. This is not the way to go, if anyone is thinking of pushing a partner through court. It has been 18 months of hell, made far harder by being a respondent and living outside the UK.

So round 2 and 3 for maintenance starts tomorrow I suppose. Thanks to all who replied. I've never felt so much relief before, I felt like I'd just finished a marathon.

[JillyR2015]

Do keep us informed. 62% to you is good. My ex got 59% with no obligation to support the 5 children (clean break in all senses) but I do earn a lot more than he does and we agreed that. In fact my lawyer thought had we had a hearing he might have got as low as 39% but we might have spent as much as the sum dividing us on legal fees.

Most UK barristers do not lie actually. We have a fairly reputable legal profession in the UK but they do have skills at asking difficult questions.

Most UK divorces do not have hearings at all and the whole system is designed to keep people out of court on money and children matters. It sounds like you had no choice at all as you have such a difficult ex husband so got the worst of the system.

It is also so hard dealing with courts. We need a more email system than we have. I even as a lawyer In a different legal area have to assume a lot of what I send will never get through to the right person and keep resending it and sending it yet again when there is a hearing. If we could move to access to litigants of a court website where documents are uploaded which is the system lawyers use on many business sales these days - where you go on line to see all the lodged documents - it would be so much better.

The final hearing system is a pretty awful system to be subjected to particularly because of cross examination of witnesses although it does in some cases give a better way to test things than just on the paperwork. For my general clients I always say going to court in a sense is failure. Mostly people settle for all kinds of disputes whether it is a Government £100m contract gone wrong or £1k owed by Jim to Joe.

I can certainly understand why the judge's agreement of the adultery etc matters more to you than other aspects. It is one reason mediation and settlement out of court works best for child and money disputes in divorce as for many people it is about how we feel as much as anything else.

Good luck on the maintenance side. If he has not paid a lot of maintenance he owes then try to get the court to add the lump sum owed on to your 62% of assets and perhaps even get on going maintenance commuted into a lump sum paid out of the joint assets - that might even get your share up to 100% but of course that may not be workable as the court will probably trust that he will pay. you can get a "penal notice" attached to an obligation to pay which means he goes to prison if he does not pay - so try to get that too if you can. Also presumably you want immediate access to the house and probably as soon as his share of the divorce is paid a house transfer into your sole name and you taken off the mortgage if there is one and if the mortgage company would agree to that. Lots to do. Good luck.

[cannotseeanend]

Great comments Jilly.

The only criticism levelled at me was my use of email to send documents and I was really disappointed that it appears the majority were ignored, which is why I re-sent them several times, leading to criticism but the courts refused to accept them first time! I am not in the UK, it was already costing me a fortune in posting the documents periodically. The court was completely unprepared for a foreign spouse situation. I asked several times for the case to be moved to London.

The maintenance is being dealt with in country of domicile of children and myself and my husband has of course launched 6 appeals against it, to delay the courts and meaning the English judge had his hands tied. And the foreign court has also refused to deal properly because of the English court! Catch 22.

So I now owe him in equity to buy him out the same amount almost as he owes the kids in maintenance. I know I will never never get him to pay. He's heavily in debt, having spent 25k on frivolous jewellery, holidays, clothes, eating out, plus huge amounts of children of 2 different dads, one of whom pays double to his 2 kids as I have received in partial maintenance for 4. The judge remarked on the disparity of a family with 1 mum, 2 dads, a step-dad, with income of 60k, and me with 4 kids with income including child benefit of 30k. Yet I am able to control my spending and put the needs of kids first. The other family, well 2 of the 4 adults should be ashamed of themselves, both in respected professions.

I am going pleading to the mortgage company again today, plus visiting other options. I want this concluded as fast as possible.

Final Hearings. A warning for anyone thinking of putting another person through it, please don't. The pain is too much. Please mediate. No matter how awful your situation is, or how much you and the children are victims, final hearings just make it worse. It was not my choice. I was the respondent. I was put on trial along with the children. We were found not guilty. But we all lost. Only the barristers gained.

And the biggest lie the barrister told, I was so angry about I forwarded the emails he'd received showing his words in court towards me were inexcusable.

I have had a legal professional in the other country lie, I said no. I have now lost trust in that person for even suggesting it.

[JillyR2015]

So you owe him from the capital assets what he owes you for maintenance. I suppose the complication of that rather than just a simple set off is that the maintenance is being handled abroad so he might dispute it as just setting one sum against the other, although I do not see why.

In order to get the house 100% into your name I wonder if you can get a court order that the court will sign the transfer deed sa I expect your ex will refuse (if the lender will agree) once you have applied a set off of the maintenance owed against the capital you owe him from the house/children's savings.

Good luck with it all. One reason we settled with no hearings was to get it over with and he was advised not to leave the house until decree absolute, property and mortgage transfer etc so we both speeded it up over a rather difficult 7 months of still living together.

[TeapotDictator]

Thanks for the update cannot. I'm glad you have some sort of resolution.

I am heading for a final hearing, and to be honest telling anyone who is heading that way to mediate instead is pretty futile - nobody sane would ever willingly go through the process unless they had to. In my case I have an abusive husband who thinks he knows better than everyone else and simply will not comply, disclose, or negotiate. We tried mediation and it was awful - he left our mediators (yes, plural, he claimed the first one wasn't "up to the job") slack-jawed at his aggression and arrogance. I feel nothing but relief about our upcoming hearing because at least it will bring some sort of conclusion, albeit an expensive one that is eating away at our marital pot. How can you say that a final hearing is worse than any other situation? At present I continue to be implicated in my (unpredictable and erratic) husband's behaviour and I simply have to get away from that. I am the Applicant, it is more than two years since I made my application, and as I say the final hearing cannot come soon enough. I want to move on with my life. I don't mind being cross-examined, in my mind it is an inevitable part of the process.