Any advice to prevent H from constantly delaying divorce proceedings

[doddlitis]

Hi all, I'm a regular but name changed for this.

H agreed to divorce and not to contest the matter given his unreasonable behaviour. I filed for divorce in Autumn and although he didn't accept the reasons I cited (but then that's all part of the unreasonable behaviour, disagreeing with anything and everything) he eventually appointed a solicitor but not until after we had to pay to have the divorce papers formally served on him because he wouldn't respond to the documents sent in the post.

He then refused to go through mediation which would have potentially saved us £,£££'s. I'm not expecting a substantially bigger share of our joint assets in comparison to him, I don't expect things will fluctuate much from 50/50 but he believes he will be "ripped off" and end up much worse off as a result of the divorce. Mediation could have helped us sort that out if he would just have attended in a "reasonable" frame of mind. Following that he stopped communicating with his solicitor so they eventually stopped acting for him as he wouldn't put together any of the information requested or even return their calls. All of this mean't that we were delayed in moving on to the next stage of things.

We finally get a FDA date and he eventually appointed a new solicitor at the eleventh hour (but who is now struggling to maintain contact with him) and although the FDA was postponed a revised deadline was set for exchanging form E to give him additional time as he had done nothing.

I spent a lot of time doing my form E, guided by my solicitor, it is comprehensive and honest. I also did all sorts of additional stuff that the solicitor requested such as a projected income and expenditure for myself and the teenagers going forward, research for details of alternative housing options etc.

Today I have received a copy of his form E which contains values he wishes are true in respect of property (not backed up by a valuer's report of any sort), lies about his health and inability to work (which funnily enough started at the same time as the divorce proceedings) and lots of speculation about my finances/my future financial position. Any box which should have a pension valuation in respect of his pensions is left blank. I know for a fact that he has received ALL of his pension valuations but he's stating these will follow when he receives them which just allows him to delay, delay and delay as far as I can see.

So basically he now knows everything about my pensions, bank accounts, projected living costs post divorce etc and has effectively avoided providing anything meaningful in exchange. How is this legal ? Is there anything that can be done to make him comply properly ? My solicitor already had to attach a penal notice (I think) to the second request for him to produce a form E but in all honesty he hasn't complied anyway because it's just a pile of misinformation/omissions and speculations about my finances when it should be all about him and his. It's just another delaying tactic as far as I can see and one that he's getting away with.

All the time this is going on, he's effectively not paying any child maintenance because he refuses to get a job and isn't eligible for any benefits so contributes nothing, just lives off me/our savings via use of the current account and sharing the marital home with me and the teenage children. He's also racking up legal fees for both of us unecessarily, having to physcally serve divorce papers on him, the ignored mediation, the first solicitor, all wasted money coming out of our joint account. Is there any way he can be made to take the brunt of these costs, only necessary due to his defiance of the whole process, when it comes to finally splitting our assets between us ?

My solicitor seems in no hurry and just issues soothing words, but then the longer this goes on, the more the solicitors make out of us....

He's pissing away his remaining working years (we're middle aged) and stealing yet more years of my life and I'm beyond pissed off given the rubbish contained in his form E.

If he thinks he can claim SAHP status for teenagers aged 15-18 he needs to give his head a wobble.

Get the kids to start doing their own laundry incl ironing, and each one can cook one meal each per week and clean up in a rota.

Start this week on this. They can manage their time easily now that it's summer

My mother did.
she gave up work when first had children.
she received a very generous spousal maintenance to reflect her work and continuing work as sahm and fact that been out of market place for 20 year which severely restricts opportunities

hemce me asking how long the husband had not been working

YY to Ohthatsexciting - you can't close the bank account. Nor can you simply move out and stop paying bills. But you can take out half of the money in it and only pay in enough to cover bills.

At this point your solicitor should start playing hardball. The court can order a settlement in absentia if your H continues to refuse to engage with the proceedings. It hasn't exactly got to the place where H is irrefutably not acting in good faith, but it wouldn't be a bad idea for your sol to get a date for the full completion of the form E from H's sol. If that doesn't happen, then a judge might be happy to make an order.

The solicitors can't allow the process to drag out in hopes of getting fat hourly fees for years. That is malpractice.

Once the process gets under way, it is desirable to establish a schedule to make H behave, and the court might consider this given the delaying that has gone on up to now.

@Ohthatsexciting

I had seen the OP's post where she said her H had only been a SAHP for 6 months when I said he needs to give his head a wobble. The teens are old enough not to need a SAHP anyway.

Yes, a long tern SAHP who has given up a career to stay home would likely get a good settlement. A malingerer who has merely been at home, for 6 months, not so.

Ask the bank to freeze the account. Open a new bank account in your sole name with another bank (and preferably not one in the same banking group) so it can't be linked. Get your wages/benefits paid into the new account.

You say he had to give up his job due to I’ll health

Irrespective of whether you believe him, does he have any medical diagnosis?

Once upon a time that would have happened. Nowadays, or so my solicitor said, in ordinary cases (i.e. not super rich) someone who has been out of the workforce for 20 years might get SM but they would be expected to maximise their own income first, both through earnings and benefits.

So perhaps if your mother came before a court now she might have an imputed income of full time on minimum wage (OP's ex will have a higher imputed income) plus benefits. SM would be considered after that if reasonable needs exceeded this.

I got spousal maintenance until my youngest is 18 (she was 4 when we divorced)

he was very high earner
i was sahm

I went back to work 2 years after the divorce. SM stayed the same as per the agreement

He didn't have to give up his job due to ill health. There was no ill health at this point.

He didn't have to stop working, it's just that the contract he had been scheduled to work on for at least another 18 months prematurely came to an abrupt end. He's worked in fairly senior roles and was once head-hunted many years ago.

H simply didn't look for a new contract or permanent roles and ignored contact from recruitment consultants/linked in contacts. He just decided that he's too ill to work with health issues that he never complained of suffering from previously and which are hard to prove/dis-prove.

No, he has no medical diagnosis.

Ok so if your solicitor doesn’t secure you a very fair and robust deal, then you have the wrong solicitor.

Would you be suspicious that he's playing up on the illness front in order to get a larger share of assets when they're finally split ? "His ability to work is compromised by his state of health" to quote his solicitor.

We're both middle aged with the odd ache and pain and divorce most certainly is stressful and anxiety inducing but one of us keeps buggering on. I'm now worried that he's going to want me to support him by way of spousal maintenance until he retires.

Spousal maintentenance is usually limited and restricted so you can't marry earn excess money etc it stops

Without a medical diagnosis it is just words and will be ignored.

if I was his solicitor I would be urgently encouraging him asap to get to the doctor to recorded on medical records

The court would most definitely expect him to get a job with a similar salary expectation as before. This is what I was told by my solicitor anyway. His claims are baseless.

I am also going through divorce with soon to be EX who is dragging his feet at every point. We have been to 6 mediation sessions! I finally had enough and said I won’t go again. Now I am not sure what is happening as he initially said he accepted my offer and now seems to be backtracking again to say he’s ‘getting advice’. Meanwhile I am going insane and the poor kids are in limbo. He has no concern for them or anyone else.

Sorry, no advice but totally sympathise.

Freeze any joint accounts. I'm not sure if you can just ask the bank to do that but it needs to be done.

He is wasting the money, he should be working or claiming benefits.

Ignore

as per above. A “joint” account is “joint” for a reason. You can’t unilaterally make a change to an account without the other party 🙄

My soon to be ex closed our joint accounts without telling me, suddenly the accounts were just gone. So I think you can make changes - whether legally there’s a problem with that, I don’t know.

No it absolutely contravenes the basis of a a joint bank account if one party can behave unilaterally unless specifically agreed

Ask your bank to change the way any joint account is set up so that both of you have to agree to any money being withdrawn, or to freeze it.

Ask your bank to change the way any joint account is set up so that both of you have to agree to any money being withdrawn, or to freeze it

*@Ohthatsexciting

I can't do this or agree to this as given H's unreasonable behaviour this would cripple my ability to run the house and home. Given the power of veto, he relish not agreeing to any monies being paid out without a huge debate over every little thing because he is extremely angry with me for trying to go ahead with the divorce. I'm not exaggerating when I say I'd need to set aside hours of my free time to discuss and get agreement for routine expenditure let alone anything ad-hoc.

His solicitor states that H is very stressed but they've only met with him once or twice. I've been married to him a long time and known him even longer. I can see that what is causing his "stressed" persona is angry rage at not being able to stop the process and fear that he won't be as financially comfortable after divorce unless he can lie and cheat his way to a better settlement than is fair (regardless of what that means for his kids) as otherwise he'll need to get back in to the world of work.

He's doing absolutely everything he can to make it take as long as possible though and succeeding in adding considerably to my day to day stress levels which is doing bad things to my (already high) blood pressure but I haven't claimed to be too ill to work !

If your solicitor can't give you a clear firm way ahead then change, I had to after a year of fannying around with a solicitor who told me I couldn't afford court - true - but I'd still be married if it was up to her ! I found an excellent solicitor who took credit card and we got it done .

An update, - H hasn't found the time to correspond with or meet with his solicitors but he has found time to go to the GP's.

No doubt he'll be coming back with prescriptions (free because he is "unemployed") followed by a doctor's report to provide to the solicitor confirming his mental health state and his impossible to disprove physical ailments.

I'm stuffed aren't I because, from bitter experience, the GP is likely to do whatever gets him out of their consulting room in the shortest possible time.

Meanwhile I'm overdue for a blood pressure review appointment but apparently there's no appointments available for this until the end of August, due to staff holidays and no, I can't have a doctor's appointment unless a nurse/trained health care individual has checked my blood pressure and refers me on to see the GP as a result of that.

Not screwed OP.
but GPs aren’t fools
if he gets a diagnosis and prescriptions, then he’s either a very good actor or the diagnosis stands

Just picking up this thread. Stbx petitioned divorce but is now stonewalling. Won't communicate with solicitors or me. My solicitor bill is getting high! Can I pay for my costs etc out of settlement? Joint owned house and he has generous pensions.

Why is your solicitor so wet and accommodating. Ask them to be more forthright. My friend had this, her solicitor was so passive, so she changed solicitor asking them to be much more aggressive.