We formally divorced (decree absolute) a few months ago in the UK. I am now living with the DS in Asia while my ex-wife is living at the family home alone in the UK. The family home in the UK is on a mortgage and the mortgage form only has my name on it.
My ex-wife and I are in dispute of financial settlement and childcare arrangement. We are now waiting for court’s direction. But due to the covid-19, the court has not made any decision on the future direction on the issues in the last couple of months. My ex-wife and I haven’t got any agreement yet on how the child maintenance should be. Due to the lack of court order, my ex-wife refused to pay a single penny of child maintenance. Both myself and my solicitor wrote to my ex-wife’s solicitor several times, asking for their position on the child maintenance. But they simply ignored our request by making no comments at all on the topic.
Funding my son exclusively while starting a new career from a new country has put me into significant financial difficulty. My question is how I can protect my son’s best interest and my best interest. I no longer have a solicitor to represent me as all my income are exhausted on the child and family cost. But at the same time, she has all her income at her disposal for the solicitors (She is working full-time and has a very similar income as me). She even does not need to pay anything towards her accommodation (as she refused to pay the mortgage of the family home though she is living inside it alone). It feels very unfair. What will be my options? I think the court will eventually come to a conclusion on what the future childcare arrangement will be. But I don’t know when it will be. Can I ask her to pay the child maintenance immediately and possibly recover her missed payment?
I mentioned I left the UK a few months ago. My ex-wife’s solicitor is now writing to me, telling me that they now have confidential documents of mine which was sent to them by wife. Her solicitors claimed they had not read the documents themselves and they would apply for the court order on those documents under the Imerman Act. My understanding is that they don’t want to send the documents to me directly as I no longer have a solicitor to represent me.
My question is that is this a breach of my privacy by my ex-wife and her solicitors? Me being not physically in the UK does not mean they can access my personal documents inside the family home without my consent. Should I make a formal complaint to my ex-wife’s solicitor for breaching my privacy? Can I report them to government authorities for breaching my privacy? I have now sent two replies to my ex-wife’s solicitor, asking them to either post the documents ‘unopened’ to me or return them to where they were inside the family home. I have also asked my ex-wife’s solicitors to confirm ‘the contents of the documents has not been mentioned, discussed or indirectly shown by any means to the solicitors’. But my ex-wife’s solicitors offered no reply at all.
How can I stop my wife and her solicitors’ unreasonable behavior (i.e., refusing to pay child maintenance and breaching my privacy)?
Please advise. Thank you very much.