Clean financial break

[littlematchstickgirl]

Looking for some advice please!

Husband and I are separating - I am buying him out of our home, he is purchasing another. We will keep our own pensions, using all savings to finance the split (houses). We earn similar salaries - 3 children, will pay no maintenance as they will be 50:50 and we will keep an account with money for their cost requirements. All reasonably amicable. Will divorce and get a clean financial break.

If I save any money from now until divorce/financial break, do I have to declare it when applying for divorce/financial break? Will it be 'ours' rather than 'mine'? If I am saving it from now, I don't want him to have any claim to it, since it will have come from my money only.

Thanks in advance for advice

Can anyone advise please? Thank you.

I think from what I've read if you've officially properly separated and the money is not needed to house the kids then it's yours.
Like everything in divorce it's all up in the air.

Have you done your form e?

After that they wouldn't know - my ex dragged his feet on form e and I pushed it as I wanted it complete before my annual bonus hit by bank account.......

That said I had small ish savings (and also a loan) whereas my ex was running in overdraft but we did much as you - split equity in house and then kept everything else ourselves. Because we had agreed it and judge felt comfortable it was fair then it was all agreed as ok. So if your solicitor writes in document the agreed split I doubt you would get made to split any savings anyway.

Your duty to provide full and frank disclosure persists until the order is approved by the judge.

However, post separation savings in a case like this could be rinfenced.

Best advice is to crack on and get your paperwork done. Have you issued your petition yet?

Thanks for replying. No, we need to fill out the paperwork - do they check what accounts you have? I have put a small amount into a newly opened account - my parents gave me it as something to fall back on since we cleared our savings to finance splitting up. He knows I have it, I just didn't want to start saving and being frugal, if I had to give him half, after we've split up.

We have agreed everything financial, but I'm always aware things could change.

We still live in the same home - waiting for the transfer of deeds to me for this house, then the release of my new mortgage funds to be given to him to purchase his new place. Everything is 'going through' now, with respect to both house purchases.

We will fill out the divorce paperwork and clean break form very soon. He wanted to get his new house sorted first and was happy to wait 2 years to divorce without petitioning me. I don't want to be liable for any of his finance any longer than I have to be, so have asked that we start paperwork soon. Being liable for my own, single new mortgage, etc is scary enough.

Does that all sound ok? Thanks for your advice.

No, he will petition - will raise paperwork in the next few weeks.

There is no plan to not declare any money, I just didn't want to save and be incredibly frugal from this point onwards, yet have to give half of that.

He is clear we are no longer together, I'm just trying to get my head around it all. It's not what I wanted.

So if we have split, in my mind, money I save from this point onwards ins mine (and his is his), but wasn't sure how the law would see that. Thank you.

Not 100% sure if all divorce proceedings are the same with regards to financial disclosure but I'm currently going through this stage of events now and have had to disclose ALL accounts (Personal and Business), proof of earnings (Payslips etc), any Savings/ISA details along with details of any financial commitments (Bills, CC Statements, Loan agreements etc). From what I understand that is common practice so you may well be required to do the same?
We are almost 2.5 years post separation, 3 children and no real assets to speak of

My only concern would be what will you do if judge doesn't agree proposed split?

My solicitor advised not to start remortgage process until financial order was signed off.

So it is possible the judge wouldn't agree to the split, even if we both agree?!?! I hadn't even considered that!!

Is that likely? We were under the impression that if we both agreed, it would be simple....

It's possible if they felt it was unfair to one party or other.

It sounds like it's fairly even abs with kids 50/50 so probably not but I guess you never know.

I would suggest getting it formalised ASAP in case anything changed. However you cannot submit consent until Nisi granted. Which will take several months.

When I divorced 6 years ago, we split the finances so that I had more equity and kept my pension. We put on the firms that we'd reached this devision amicably and he did get independent legal advice, so that he could show that he was aware he was entitled to more, but was happy with the division. Judge signed off on it.

@littlematchstickgirl

So it is possible the judge wouldn't agree to the split, even if we both agree?!?! I hadn't even considered that!!

Is that likely? We were under the impression that if we both agreed, it would be simple....

It's not likely that the judge would go against it unless there is a complete disparity in what each can provide for the children and upkeep of lifestyle to accommodate that. However, they will question that both have had access to independent advice and are fully aware of what is being agreed to

I think as long as what you've agreed meets the "needs" of both of you in terms of housing and housing the children, then any surplus money left over is unlikely to be distributed between the parties especially if you've already agreed between yourselves. But then again I'm not a solicitor/barrister, so there is still the possibility I suppose. However, I have just gone through an FDR so I do have some experience.