Divorce and Pensions split

[Kazanova]

I have been through DV for last 8 years. married for 17 years. 2 kids 10 and 14 years old . I have been a housewife for 10 years. But did have a part time job for 4 years. I worked in the city for many years and built up a pension pot with the companies I worked for. When I meet my husband I then joint a new company and a new pension scheme. I am currently unemployed now due to a housemove and am trying really hard to get a job and still be mum. However ehere we live jobs are rare and normally quite low in pay. My husband is making divorce very hard and wants to claim my pensions from the years I worked. We both own half a house in equity only as there is no mortgage. Im scared hes either going to walk away with my pension or more equity in the home. This would mean I have no where to live with the kids and either no pension for the future. Please could someone help?

My husband took me to court, it took him a year, delayed by me not being able to travel to the UK due to a strike and him also refusing to do his financial disclosure. IF he'd done the disclosure according to the order of the judge, it would have been 4 months.

My biggest hurdle was the fact that the court did not treat me the same as someone with legal representation. Of course I cannot prove it, but I am pretty certain of it. I learned that judge's orders can be ignored and there are NO sanctions for a spouse refusing to do the financial disclosure, refusing to answer the questionnaire, refusing to hand over a section 25 narrative. I complied completely. He never once made a court ordered deadline and not any punishment. This made me more angry than anything, a mockery of a court system. I don't understand why paperwork cannot be sent electronically and stored by court electronically, for both sides to access read only, it would be far more efficient. The court was able to lose all my medical paperwork for example. I had emergency surgery and despite proving it with the medical reports and photos, they lost the lot, I had to provide it all again at final hearing, despite not even living in UK and a frantic search for it to be sent yet again from abroad.

I have been left with huge anxiety problems, due to this process. Mediation is not obligatory for overseas spouses whose husbands flee to the UK to hide from their spouses and make child support hard to obtain. And the courts treat you with disgraceful lack of any compassion at all, but I guess they spend their days dealing with difficult situations and become desensitized. I would avoid court as a last resort and do not understand anyone who jumps to lawyers as a first option.

I identify with the anxiety - immense! Having said that if I had just gone straight to court I would be done a dusted now. Done a yr of solicitors and several months mediation. He say he wants to resolve, but that's not true! He took over a yr to disclose almost fully.

From what I gather all judges are different and they can normally tell when one side is being a twat. At least if I self rep, then his solicitor has to do the bundle. Some have no patience with those who don't adhere to deadlines, others put off proceedings.

I would not trust the other side doing the bundle.
I was not given access to the other side's bundle, even during the trial. I tried to complain but got nowhere, just too terrified to upset the judge. I felt a bit powerless at times and way out of depth.
I provided court with my bundle, it was ignored. I don't have the energy left to launch a complaint. I just cannot. There are greater fights.

Have to agree about the judge I had. I didn't give him enough credit really. He got a bit fed up with me reminding him of the fact that all my decisions were in the interests of the children and his 20 minutes of summary speech I will not forget, I sometimes wonder if I am allowed a copy of it, just to show the kids when they are adults or to look back at it, or to show the in-laws who refuse to believe their cross-dressing transgender fool of son beat me and the kids up, refuse to believe he got through 100k in 18 months on jewellery, new clothes, eating out etc etc whilst leaving his kids without any money to live on. That summary speech was justice to me, as much as the 63% which was the retention of the family home, letting go of life savings and the emotional attachment to the effort involved in saving them - the savings were started almost 50 years ago by my father and knowing my husband spent through it after he abandoned us, that hurt so much. Sorry rambling now, everything is still very raw. I have to remember we have our home and it's now ours and no longer his.