STBXH thinks he shouldn't have to pay divorce costs for a divorce he didn't want

[baffledbystbxh]

I would be really grateful if people could give me their views on this.

STBXH was very difficult to live with - very moody, sulky, treated me with contempt and had poor hygiene. Things went downhill very quickly after we got married. I kept trying to talk to him about his behaviour but he would always shut me down and refuse to discuss anything. I kept trying until I had a nervous breakdown and then I filed for divorce (married less than 2 years, no DC no shared finances at all). We lived in a home which had been provided by me, rather than him or us jointly and he paid what was supposed to be half the bills.

He has kept asking for money from me in the divorce. He works, earns a good wage and has bought his own home. I don't work for health reasons and get by ok, but don't have any spare money. I didn't ask for anything in the divorce because I don't think it's appropriate in this case.

He says that he wants me to pay to reimburse him for what he has spent on lawyers bills because it was me who wanted the divorce and he didn't apparently. He says he shouldn't have had to pay for a divorce he didn't want. I'm floored by this - he claims it was all a massive shock to him, I really don't know how it can have been.

Can anyone get their head around this? I just can't fathom how someone could hire a lawyer (which isn't compulsory) and then say that the person who couldn't cope with their behaviour should have to cover their legal expenses, in addition to their own, because they didn't want to get divorced. Am I missing something? This is utterly lost on me!

So is he asking for you to pay his legal costs as part of the divorce financial settlement or is he just telling you you 'should' pay it? If the latter, ignore him. If the former and he will not budge then a judge will have to decide.

But you need to figure out if Court is going to cost you more money in the long run. If he's asking for £500 for his legal fees and your solicitor tells you his charges will be £500 to go to court + the chance of having to pay part of the shit-head's legal fees., well, you might be better off just settling.

Where he's coming from is a moot point. I wouldn't try to understand it as even if you did you're not likely to be able to change his mind. So why bother?

When my ex and I divorced (no kids, no assets) I was working a low pay job (but sufficient for my needs), he was a student on the (US) GI bill. He was getting an additional amount because he was married and he felt that since I was divorcing him I should pay him the amount of the stipend as 'alimony'. That he 'shouldn't have' to get a part time job since I was 'taking money away from him'. My lawyer just laughed and said 'Let him try'. Like you, I sweated bullets worrying about it. The bugger didn't even bother to show up for court.

Let him take you to court.

I suspect that they will laugh in his face.

@TooTrusting - thank you for your comment. There was a costs order saying he has to pay about £1,500 towards my costs. I offered to waive it to get things settled.

He's basically saying I have to give him a settlement of thousands to reimburse him for what he has spent on his lawyer's bills (paying them to demand a lot of money from me and me writing back to say no) to get the divorced finalised properly, without going to court.

He's come out with all sorts of rubbish about being broke and needing money from me because he is so poor - which obviously isn't the case as he was able to put a deposit down to buy a house. I did have some modest savings but unfortunately I spent my way through it on having a lot of counselling.

It just wouldn't be possible for me to give him what he's asking for as I'm living on a very low budget and couldn't get a loan for the sake of just making him go away.

I thought I could reason with him and get this resolved by discussing it calmly. I've explained that I don't have anything to be able to give him and tried to reason with him about the way he's insisting he shouldn't have had to pay his own lawyers, I'm wasting my time here aren't I?

My exh initiated divorce proceedings after we had been separated for three years ( due to his affair) as he wanted to marry OW. His lawyer sent me a letter asking me to pay the court costs as exH had to pay lawyers fees (sad face). I replied back to say that I might have to pay lawyers fees as well so I wasn’t willing to pay anything to the court fees, and that was he last I heard about it. As we had no children and had already split everything’s financially years ago it was all really straightforward and the divorce didn’t cost me anything more than some stamps!

He is being a cunt. It’s his decision to pick that lawyer, he needs to pay the bill.

I'd stop engaging. Just issue an application if you can afford the £255 fee. Don't bother using a solicitor. My guess is he'll back down.

You could write and point out that you are prepared to waive the £1,500 divorce costs order, so he can treat that as an equivalent contribution to his own costs.
In most financial disputes after a divorce, the normal order is that each party pays their own costs.

If you issue, the first hearing will be about 12-16 weeks later. You have to make formal financial disclosure 5 weeks before that, and then each of you gets to ask questions. The purpose of the hearing is to decide which questions need answering and whether any properties/businesses need to be valued. In your case you'd argue that there are no questions either of you need to ask because of the short marriage. The second hearing, about 2 or so months after that, is the settlement hearing where you both put your cards on the table and say what you want, and the judge will say what he thinks to encourage both of you to settle. You can treat hearing number 1 as the settlement hearing, but only if you both agree.
I doubt it will get that far. On the facts you have laid out, his lawyer will have told him he has no claims and he's just chancing his arm trying.