to not want to sign a piece of paper that enables my exh to gain some money...

[whitebeachesandcoconutoil]

to cut a long story short we split up nearly 10 years ago. i was very young and naive and left with nothing and i mean nothing.
at the time my solicitor kept telling me to go to court to claim half as we had a fair amount of assets etc etc, but i just did.nt feel 'brave' enough to do it and so said no. i signed house etc over blah blah.
exh said afterwards that he had done wrong by me and he realised he had but still it did not make him give anything to me.
now i left this weasel because he told me [when drunk] that he had had a bj off my sister and so you can imagine what my feelings are to the pair of them.
anyway i am now very happily married with an adorable lo
however today my mom rings me and says i have had a letter from solicitors asking your where abouts and for you to provide proof of adress and who you are in relation you apolicy you took out jointly with exh.
so i rang exh mom[ i have a knack for remebering numbers] and asked her if she knew what it was about and she said he is here speak to him.
anyway the upshot of it is in his words that i have to sign this paper to give permission for him to have this money cos apparently it was never settled at the time. i said what happens if i don't and he says he won't get the money.
i feel really really p**d off that yet agin i am gonna give i cos it's the right thing to do but it narks me that when i said to him gosh you really did well out of our marriage did'nt yuo he said well it's not my fault and is trying to fool me into thinking no claim.[probably i don't]
sorry i just really having a bad day because i ahve really struggled over the years sometimes not eating when he has gone on fabulously with what was our money.

yes of course. if you know the address, your name and the other parties name and rough commencement date (policy type would help too) they will tell you.

loads of policy no's go missing all the time...

they will prob even tell you the maturity sum.

thanks mankymummy i will try and ring them on monday what do i say .
that i am named on a policy and i know it has matured but what?????????

just say you remember you had a policy from ages ago, its in joint names, your name is x, the other name is x, the address is x and you would like to know what the likely maturity amount is, exact maturity date is, and how you can claim it... take control !

even though he has since changed adress?

yes as long as you know all the addresses that he has lived at, they'll just be interested in the address on the policy, and possibly the original address and the start of the policy.

"xenia i cannot remember there being a court order i remember signing paperwork for the mortgage but not a court agreement. what he said earlier was that this policy had gotten missed off?
if i ring my old solicitors will they have the paperwork cos i just don't have it it's been nearly 10 years iv'e moved house ,got married and had a child etc."

Okay, so you need to establish if you had a court order - what is known as a "consent order" or if it was fought over a court hearing after which the judge made an order to finalise the finances in the divorce.

If you did not have that 9 years ago then you can now apply for a final financial settlement from the divorce which is based in England (not Scotland) on 50% of joint assets at the date of this financial setltment ie now in 2008 not 9 years ago so you might get a good chunk of his money. If he had any sense 9 years ago though you would have agreed a consent order which says all the finances are sorted out and should have said who got the insurance policy. If you cannot find the old papers try calling your old solicitor. If you both had solicitors and it was all finally settled at the time you probably did have a consent order. If it says he gest the policy then if you refuse to sign it over now he can force you too because the consent order is a contract under which you agreed to hand over that policy.

Equally possibly if you both forgot about this policy, it never formed part of the final settlement in the divorce, so, even if you signed a consent order stating that he got everything, it may not apply to this policy.

I would firstly check into the status of the policy, when it matures, its maturity value, who are the named policyholders. Then go back to your solicitors and ask for a copy of any consent order - you could in theory go back to the court which handled the divorce and ask for a copy, but that may take more time.

Find out as much information as possible before agreeing to sign anything. If necessary, ask your exh to forward the papers to you for signing without indicating that you are making independent enquiries about the whole thing.