To take back my share of marital assets?

[Frage]

XH and I separated five years ago after 20 years of marriage. I left him because he was abusive to our DC.

While the sale of our marital home was proceeding, I moved into rented accommodation with our DC. XH completed on a house purchase on the same day as the sale of our marital home completed.

As he was in a 'permanent' house and I was in a rented one, XH moved the huge majority of our possessions into his house. This included furniture, TVs, stereo equipment, etc, etc - basically the contents of a seven-bedroom home.

At the time, I agreed that it made better sense than to put it into an expensive storage unit, but that we would have to divide it up once I had bought a house.

We drew up a financial settlement which we were both reasonably dissatisfied with, and have stuck to it. It has not been through a court, but has been witnessed by unrelated people.

I duly bought a house, and XH has never surrendered a thing, despite me asking him several times. So I have taken it on the chin and started from scratch (I have very little money, so it is all second-hand, Ebay/Facebook stuff). However, it all works well in a comfortable and quirky way.

It has, however, been a festering issue.

It is all the more of an issue now, as it turns out that some of these items (pictures etc) are worth a considerable amount of money. I was recently made redundant, so would like to sell them, not least to pay my tax bill. We bought them all jointly, while we were married. I have asked him civilly for half of them; he became very angry and said he would rather die than "give them to me". However, they are half mine.

The question is: WIBU to remove some of these items when I am next in his house?

The DC see him regularly, but aren't allowed a key to his house because he "doesn't trust them" (they are 16 and 18 and have given no particular cause for concern). I do, however, sometimes collect them from his house in his absence, so I would have an opportunity then.

AIBU?

You need to seek legal advice. Do you have any proof as to what you paid towards?

Hmm. Thank you, Sirzy. I did think legal advice was by far the best plan, but it's not affordable at the moment (unfortunately).

Hence my trying to think of a way round this!

I have no proof at all, because every single penny we both earned went into one joint account. All our money was shared, all the time (we didn't take X amount each for our own spending or whatever: absolutely everything was shared money). Our credit cards were all joint. We didn't have any separate accounts at all.

A solicitor's letter?

I see the voting is split... Could those who voted that IABU think of any other ways to sort this out? I'm completely open to suggestions. Lawyer is, as mentioned, the best and most obvious - but ruled out by cost.

katy1213

I had wondered about that, too. A letter on its own might be affordable - but it's the long consultation beforehand which I fear would prove costly!

I’d send a letter (via a solicitor if possible). If he doesn’t hand back anything then yeah, I’d get in there and take the stuff back.

Fuck that think Id just take them. He did!!!

You had a 7 bedroom house, which suggests a higher than average level of assets.

And yet you didn’t think it worth getting a court sealed Consent Order?

Why?

Did your home made (back of a fag packet?) agreement include full disclosure of all assets? PENSION?

Go and see a solicitor, and get a Consent Order sorted properly.

Do you have the agreement to half the marital assets actually in writing? If so you could take him to small claims court (£25 I believe). Bear in mind though he could counter claim for storage fees at his place.

If the above is true, you could write a letter before action yourself, giving him 14 days to return the property to you, otherwise you will be filing with small claims. You can get templates online.

As to what I would do if you really can’t get the money together for legal advice...

I would research Consent Orders, and look again at your financial agreement. Which isn’t legally binding. Perhaps a “right you fucker, hand over xyz or I’m going to re-open financials, and go for a Pension Sharing Order” night galvanise him?

It’s perhaps a bit of a leap, but I’m putting abusive man + not keeping promise + homemade agreement together, and thinking that it’s likely it went in his favour.

Ellisandra, you make some very good points.

We both started off using solicitors. However, it became clear after the first £2,000 or so that we would end up spending a hideous amount of money fighting one another, when we really, really needed all the money we had to enable the children's existences to continue uninterrupted (apart from the one major and horrible change of their parents splitting up). So we drafted our own agreement with the help of a mediator (a very kind lawyer friend for whom I did some favours in return). We had both given a full disclosure to our respective solicitors. XH also had to disclose assets pre-dating our marriage. I could have had a claim on them, given the length of our marriage, but agreed to him retaining them on the condition that they be left to our children in his Will.

Sparklfairy, Property and income were mentioned in the Separation Agreement, but chattels were not.

I received other assets (not realisable at the moment) in lieu of any claim on XH's pension. These assets are of similar value to his pension.

I think the situation in my OP would have remained only a lasting but minor gripe, had my redundancy not put me in very dire financial straits which are now affecting the DC.

I certainly wouldn’t just take things.
Whoever owns the items, you have no right to enter his home, and if he called the police you’d have been trespassing at least.

Do this properly. Get a CO.

Ellisandra, thank you for your second one too.

Your hunch is right!

Given that I have been compensated for renouncing any claim to his pension, I could perhaps try: "right you fucker, hand over xyz or I’m going to re-open financials, and re-visit all the assets I didn't claim in the first place, even though I could have done" (and I know I could have done, based on the legal advice I did have!)

I have tried to get on with him for the DC's sakes, but he really is the most unreasonable and malicious bugger.

Cross posted!
My apologies that I had assumed your agreement was less well considered than it obviously was. I’m glad to be wrong! I see so many women on here who get totally shafted, so I’m pretty cynical that when a CO is avoided, it’s usually because one party is benefiting more, and that person is often the man!

Ellisandra (again) - thank you. I thought it might be ok as I am allowed to enter his home to collect the DC (DD quite often makes me a cup of tea if I collect her, so I can wait while she goes and finishes faffing on Snapchat sorts her stuff out). But perhaps not...

@Frage

Please see @Ellisandra

I am sorry but if you want to start doing this [quite reasonably] and unless you can agree with ex-OH then not only may you need a solicitor you will need a court order.

I cannot establish whether you actually divorced; if so everything should have been listed on Form E and the split sorted out.

i'd be afraid if you cant show any proof of joint ownership, and you cant show any proof that you agreed to share these items , in fact if i understand you correctly , he can show there was in fact no agreement to share them, and he's had them in his own home now for 5 years , you taking them from his house without permission would be a clear case of theft.

Why are your DC still seeing him if you left because he was abusive to them? Are they in danger? They are old enough to refuse aren't they???

Another v good question, Ferretyone. No, we are not divorced - because, bizarrely, we discovered post Decree Nisi that I still get half of XH's pension if he drops dead, so long as we don't have a Decree Absolute. There's no chance of either of us remarrying, so we left it as it was (could, obviously, re-visit this if the remarriage situation were ever to change - but we are both single and have been since we separated).

I am going to Google Court Orders.

You do understand correctly, LifeSpectator. Bugger.

Back to the drawing board.

Josette77. He is ok with them now that a) they are older; and b) they are old enough to leave if he starts showing his horns. As he doesn't live with them full-time, though, he behaves much better towards them. They do know that they never have to see him if they don't want to - but I have put a lot of effort into trying to encourage a positive relationship between him and them. DD has also been treated by CAMHS, and DS still regularly sees a psychologist via his school.

Well that makes my CO urging a moot point you can apply for it after nisi, but it won’t be issued until after absolute.

But it means there’s no argument about whether the paintings were marital assets or not - you’re still married, so they are joint assets.

I see what you’re saying about the pension, but do you trust him? (I’m thinking no)
The provision will be for a dependent’s pension - it’s usually at the discretion of the pension trustees. They could refuse to pay out to you I think, on the basis that you were basically married in paperwork only - although I doubt they’d know. This man would “rather die” than give you your jointly owned paintings. I wouldn’t trust him on the pension.

The OP is still married, then as PP has said, the items are joint assets. When I was separated from (now) XH, but not yet divorced, he entered my home when I wasn't there and took a whole load of items. None of them had any monetary value, but were of sentimental value to me, photos etc, which were of no value to him. He only took them to upset me. When I called the police, they refused to get involved, and explained that as we were still technically married, he was entitled to take anything, as they were joint assets. Infuriating, but true.

He could take them, but he might have got into hot water if he’d sold them - which is what OP wants to do.

One more try then go via divorce and a CO!

You could possibly use his refusal to stick to your unofficial agreement as grounds!