friend lied in court - been caught out ..what now?

[butterfly2015]

A friend lied in the final hearing for a divorce. Evidence has now come out and her ex is trying to take it back to court as she was given a lot of money based on the false information she gave.

Will she get into trouble? Will the court take money back? It's a bit complicated but basically she made out she needed money for housing costs and said she was not going to live with her boyfriend who lives in another town. After the divorce (she got 75%) she told her ex she was moving in with her boyfriend and it turned out she'd made an application for a school place before the divorce hearing, from her boyfriends address.

Sir Walter Scott's "Oh, what a tangled web we weave: When first we practise to deceive!" comes to mind.

Dishonesty doesn't pay. If the non disclosure makes a substantial difference the former husband may appeal to have the settlement set aside. Strictly speaking non disclosure may be treated as contempt of court and your friend could be ordered to pay her former husband's legal costs for the appeal. So she would be well advised to seek her own legal advice.

She will lose some of the money I think. She will probably do well to reach an agreement with her ex rather than go back to court. She needs to get advice from her solicitor as to what was a reasonable deal given the real circumstances (ie intention to cohabit) rather than the supposed ones (intention to live alone). She also needs to protect her assets from her new partner in case they split up, probably with a deed of trust relating to the new property.

sadly I think your friend is in alot of trouble my EX sister in law attempted something just like that and ended up having to give cash to my DB (same split she oringally got 75%) but once the evidence came to light the judge ordered it be a 50 /50 split and she had to pay ALL DB court costs (Both appeal and orignal case which actully meant so only got just over 40% of the assits and had to spend 20,000 on legal costs)

Thank you. She's not actually a friend, she is my dps ex but I wanted non biased answers. My dp has been through hell over the last year but we have an appeal date through and are really hoping for a fairer division of assets due to her living in a mortgage free house now and having a partner with income which was not taken into consideration whereas my child tax credits was and yet her legal team said housing for my kids should not be considered although happy to consider the money for them.

Agh.. the answer would change because the perspective is different rather than bias. If non disclosure wasn't material it may not be worth appealing to set aside the order because of costs. In these cases the general court rule that the unsuccessful party to an action pays the costs of the successful party applies. That means someone considering an appeal needs to know from their legal team that the evidence is sufficient, and the probability of success is high , otherwise they could end up paying their ex's legal costs as well as their own and the costs aren't insignificant.

As far as housing your children is concerned the priority with divorce settlements is the welfare of dependent children of the divorcing couple (see s25 Matrimonial Causes Act 1973) so unfortunately your children come second. Although non disclosure will have done the former wife no favours the court may want to ensure she can afford to house the children so they don't suffer undue hardship if her new relationship is fairly new and not settled in case it breaks down.

She's been with him three years and stated she was not going to live with him. Three weeks after the divorce she emailed dp and said she would be moving in with him in the July and had got a school place for the child. The school place was applied for prior to the hearing. So two pieces of written evidence plus her solicitor put it in writing after the fact and said she'd applied for the school place in case things didn't go her way in court. But they did and she still moved so it seems like excuses.

Ex has already had money off dp before the hearing plus she cashed in the endowment. After paying her rent she had £30k a year to live on and claimed it wasn't enough, she has been running up debt. For one adult and one child. We live on a lot less than her but don't have holidays. We are left with the £100k debt run up during the marriage.