Adjourned due to Covid

[FishOnPillows]

I have a long-running divorce with my ex-husband. We started financial mediation nearly two years ago, that fell apart a year ago, then I applied to the court. He has dragged his heels and consistently failed to do anything until a penal notice was attached to orders.

We were supposed to have a hearing mid-March, but received a court order a week before saying the case had been adjourned indefinitely. It advised we work it out ourselves, but if we could not then we would be advised of a new date if and when one was available.

Has anybody else has this, and if so has anyone had a new date?

I’m now concerned we’re going to have to redo Form Es all over again, and it took 6 months and a penal notice to get him to submit his the first time - and even then it was full of easily provable lies and had huge chunks missing.

I just want this over. All I want is the damn house sorted - either sold or he buys me out. I don’t care which. I just want to move on.

I totally sympathise. My stbx stalled, refused mediation and submitted an incomplete form e.
The only way I can get clarity with missing information is to ask in my questionnare. He still hasn't answered the 21 questions we put to him...
It always seems they get away with it don't they? What does your solicitor say about not going to court?
Trouble is with negotiating, you need to be sure that you have all the facts and he's not hiding anything. As I've said in another post, my directions hearing last week ordered us to provide latest p60 and payslips since then. Hopefully the bulk of information can be reused.

Thank you for your reply!

We got to the point where I finally received his [incomplete] Form E, and had submitted my questionnaire. Not heard a peep out of him since (afaik he didn’t file a questionnaire about my Form E).

If they disregard current Form Es then that’s probably all evidence of his payments to undeclared accounts in his name gone. But honestly at this point I just want it done - I’ve always said I just want to split the equity in the house in half and that’s it. He earns 3-4 times what I do, and I put down the sizeable deposit on the house. Splitting the equity in half barely gets me my deposit back. But he screamed at me in mediation and they had to escort him from the premises, so that was the end of that.

I think this is complicated slightly because we have a child arrangements case going at the same time. He currently has residency of the children, I’m applying for me to (for numerous reasons) and thus far it’s looking positive for that to happen - next hearing is due this week. So that’s likely to change things re:finances anyway (not my motivating factor in the slightest though!).

My solicitor has mainly been focused on the children’s case (as have I), and we’ve known no financial settlement would be reached until the children had been finalised now. But this next finance hearing I was hoping to get him ordered to answer the questions and provide the missing information, so at least we were moving forward.

It’s just the not having a clue when this will finally be sorted that’s driving me mad. Or not even knowing how long I’ll be waiting for a new court date. I just want to draw a line under it all and move on with my & the kids’ lives.