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Legal matters

Keep hold of (very) old divorce/custody documents or chuck them?

4 replies

Sioned1649 · 24/08/2015 09:09

I have a massive amount of paperwork relating to my divorce/custody issues (many moons ago - DC now in his 20s and I've been happily re-married for a long time). Many of the documents are highly unpleasant, showing ex up to be the very vindictive & prurient person that he was/is. He's still on the scene as DC lives near him & has, particularly after leaving home, been unfortunately influenced by the ex who hasn't moved on in his life and is still angry and difficult. This ex made my family's life intolerable.

Now, I have nothing to do with him expect, of course that he's within a stone's throw of DC who has MH difficulties and so, I suppose, ex is some kind of contact, albeit a very unreliable one.

Anyway, what to do with this mass of papers? I don't want my other DCs to see them, or, if ever he returns home (long story) my oldest DC. There are things in them about me, about my parents, even my present DH which are horrible to read, even after all these years.

I worry that if I died, the papers would be there for the reading (hidden, of course, away at present). Or the DCs could find them in the course of rummaging around the house. Could I deposit them somewhere or is it now time to check them out - and deal with DC1 without any of this baggage. The fact that his father was a complete and utter s_t, with gross behaviour, is maybe now not relevant insofar as brining anything up now can't make any difference to DC' wellbeing. Except perhaps to explain, if explanations are necessary, why it was entirely necessary to protect DC1 from his father.

Any advice would be welcome.

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howtorebuild · 24/08/2015 09:14

Shredder?

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mowbraygirl · 24/08/2015 10:31

A friend of ours is one of the executors of a late friend of hers estate. This friend was divorced over 30 years ago and at the time asked our friend if she could keep for safe keeping all the financial papers relating to the divorce.

Now the ex wife is contesting the will as she maintains he didn't pay all he should have to her on the divorce. Our friend much to the amazement of the solicitor handling the estate was able to produce all these papers which proved the ex wife received everything she was entitled to. What a vindictive woman upsetting all the family after all these years.

So if I was you just keep anything related to financial matters and shred the rest as you say you wouldn't like your DC's to read it. My neighbours has her daughters divorce papers at her house as she didn't want her DC's to know she had been married before.

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Sioned1649 · 24/08/2015 10:47

Many thanks. A shredder is a good idea for the very personal stuff that, even now, is so unpleasant to read, brining back horrendous memories. But the financial stuff is something else and many thanks, mowbraygirl for the advice.

I'm sorry that your late friend's estate was argued over in this way and what a relief that the solicitor had the paperwork to hand.

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RaspberryOverload · 25/08/2015 19:58

What about scanning the documents for future reference and then shredding? For these sort of documents I'd keep them in case of any funny queries, as mowbraygirl's post highlights.

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