Splitting assets

[shandybass]

Quick question. Me and my partner are splitting up and trying to divide our joint assets. When valuing house contents is it the current value not replacement as new, you say and then divide by 2 to split up assets. He's paying me out and saying a lot of our stuff has no value as is old.

[reallyanotherone]

Ime house contents aren't included as assets, unless you have a couple of ming vases and a van gogh lying around.

Generally they're split legally as to who bought them, or who wants them. Again ime it's who is in physical posession, as retrieving them can be next to impossible.

[shandybass]

Oh dear. I'm leaving the house and he bought almost all of it as I was a sahm.

[reallyanotherone]

If you are leaving, take anything you really want or need.

Imagine trying to get back in the house to retrieve stuff, if your ex doesn't co operate.

When my dh was kicked out of his house with nothing, his ex did promise he could come back for his clothes and personal items, and a court agreed he should be given them.

In reality she'd changed the locks (as had OM in), and just didn't hand anything over. nothing he could do.

[JaffaCakesMum]

This came up with my recently. STBEH valued all the contents (furniture) in the house by going round each room and working out how much we paid for each thing. I checked it out with my solicitor and this is wrong the value is the second hand value. BTW, I'm in Scotland.

[EnormousTiger]

The avlue is what you get seeling it just as you would if you put it on Ebay. So if you would rather have the things because you cannot afford to buy new then I would just half stuff - eg you take a bed each or half the wardrobes and plates each to solve that issue. In our case my ex left just about everything but got nearly £1m from me so the cost of buying new plates etc was neither here nor there and he got the better deal!

[Tinnah]

Good advice will do please. Received notice of certificate of entitlement to a decree, I being the respondent. Note below says I need to serve notice of intention to oppose making of an order for costs. Is that if he claimed costs from me?

1. I want to DIY divorce could anyone help. I don't have money for solicitor.
   
2. At what stage do I submit Form E (is it)
   
3. What do I need to include in my statement.
   

Please assist, so much is going on.

Been married for 7 years, no children,we had business together, he secretly set up his company, transferred all clients to his company, he refused to leave our company until divorce is complete.

House in his sole name, bought 3 three months after we married, he says I will only get a quarter of the house worth as I did not contribute a penny to mortgage.

He has transferred all his money to his family back home.

We both earned equal amounts for sometimes, but he categorically said that I take care of the house he will pay mortgage.

He is not very knowledgeable in things, I just learnt the reason he did not want me to contribute in mortgage was because in his opinion without paying mortgage, I had no right of share to the house.

He has solicitors

I will provide more detail later should it be necessary.

Thanks in advance.

[RedastheRose]

To everyone on here get legal advice. You will sell yourself short if you try and do it yourself. You may be entitled to legal aid but even if not you need proper professional advice or you will lose out. To the OP if you have been a sahm then they take into account the difference between your and his future earning potential especially where his career has benefited from having a wife at home to pick up all the slack allowing him to concentrate on his career. And yes fixtures and fittings do has value, an average 3 bedroom home probably has between 10-15 k worth of furniture. If he thinks it's worth nothing then you keep it and he can buy new!! Even if the house is in his name or other assets are they are not necessarily his to keep depending upon the length of your marriage and the assets bought during that time and what you both brought to the relationship (i.e. Not just money) even his pension could be partly yours. So PLEASE get proper legal advice.

[EnormousTiger]

1. It sounds like decree absolute might be coming (or have you not had decree nisi yet)? Most people want the finances sorted out and the court sealed consent order on the money side agreed before decree absolute and would want to hold absolute up until then.
   

1. Divorce costs - it just means the court fees (not the massive additional solictiors' fees many people have but not you). I think if he divorces you rather than vice versa you have to pay those costs although may be there are exceptions for people with very low income as there are for other court cases.
   

1. If his money is abroad now it may be very hard to get hold of it. Do you have evidence of the amount of it? Eg if it is £500,000 more likely to be worth pursuing. If it's £20k might not. Is it in an EU or a non Eu country?
   

1. Is there much equity in the house? If there is a lot and in fact more than the money he took abroad a court might decide you have the house equity and he has the money he moved abroad - depends on the amounts.
   

1. On the business transfer that is very very common (I do a lot of corporate dispute work). Although in theory he taking customers from one company to another could be a breach of his directors' duties (I will assume you and he had no written agreement about the business but if you ever set one up again make sure you do) and he might have been transferring confidential information from the first company owned with you to the second. Could you compete to get those customers back to you from his new company? The thing is if he has breached the law in the second company and you have lost ssay £500k then it may be worth going to court over that. If the value of the customers is tiny it will not be worth the time and cost and your best solution might just be making sure you do even better than he does with the remaining business and get his half of the shares in the first company perhaps as part of the divorce settlement.
   

However as said above it is very hard for us to give pointers just based on a few words on a page etc.

As Red says each of you may be required to share pensions with the other and things like that.

On the form E point we didn't have them as we just negotiated the financial settlement and had our lawyers draw it up as we each knew the assets and income of the other as we had total knowledge but if you don't then yes that form sets out what each of you have. I don't know when it's filled in but before a divorec financial preliminary hearing I expect and then there can be a final financial hearing too although we had not a single hearing as we did not want to waste mnoey on lawyers so just agreed the figures by negotiation. (I paid my ex a lot as I earned more than he did).