Divorce - financial impact

[ipsaray]

Hi, I'm hoping to divorce my husband. He is emotionally abusive and manipulative. Ours was an arranged marriage, and we have managed to drag a very unhappy marriage on for 14 years. We have 2 sons - age 9 and age 6. My main concern are finances. He is a very high earner - earning more than £100k and I earn £26k. He also has equity invested in enough properties - 3 rental properties and 1 family home. though I'm not named on any of them.
But I'm not sure how much of it I will be entitled to. My earning is not high enough to afford the mortgage on any of them and I'm working towards getting my income increased.
when I informed him of my decision, he has panicked and has told me that i won't get anything - barely enough to stay afloat - I will only get 50% of the equity in the family home. I have hired a lawyer, but I'm scared that if I file for divorce, I will be in financial ruin and my kids will be a lot worse off financially as well.

Younger 50 percent of everything as a minimum starting point.

It's good you have a lawyer, and you will need their advice on what is fair, but by way of reassurance the financial settlement should be such that both sides are adequately catered for. The starting point is 50:50 of all assets, but can be adjusted from there. As you've been married for more than a couple of years and have children then all properties, investments, savings and pensions in either of your names will be taken into account as assets.

You'll also be able to claim maintenance for the children

He's wrong OP - he's trying to scare you.

I wouldn't discuss the finances with your DH anymore. Just make sure you have copies of everything financial you can get your hands on.

Are you legally married in the UK?

If you are legally married in the UK the starting point is 50/50 of all assets. Both of you will need to be adequately housed so that isn't three properties for him and a room for you and the children. If you aren't legally married then your lawyer will need to advise you.

Go and see a solicitor- you can get a free 30 min consultation. I went to 2 different solicitors and the citizens advice bureau.

You will get child maintenance and you may also be able to claim universal credit. Back when I was a single parent I was able to get child
tax credit and housing benefit despite having a job, I was only earning about £12k though. I think this is all included in universal credit now.

Use this to work out how much child maintenance you would
get: https://child-maintenance.dwp.gov.uk/calculate/details/will-you-be-paying-or-receiving-child-maintenance-payments

and this to see if you are entitled to any benefits: https://www.entitledto.co.uk/

Good luck!

I agree he is trying to scare you. However a lot of the advice you will receive should be caveated, you are entitled to a share of marital assets based on needs. The starting point is not 50:50. That applies if your needs are equal.

Based on your limited information your needs are not equal and yours are higher.

The issue that is most likely to cause you problems is how he “owns” other properties. Given his income he is likely to have created ways to avoid tax. This usually involves passing ownership to a company or equivalent. Sometimes it might involve family members owning their property. You might want to do a bit of detective work on the ownership and you might to want to quickly register an interest in the property. This can be done via land registry.

we married in India, but marriage certificate is in english and is valid here.

He hasn't transferred ownership of any properties to anyone else yet, at least as far as I'm aware. I also maintain his rental properties, and the rental agreements copies have him listed as the landlord.

You need to put a claim on the properties and declare an interest immediately so he can’t sell or transfer them without your say. You can do this as you’re married. Why is your solicitor not advising you on what to do?

Does he have any evidence to show the marriage isn't legal / didn't follow process or anything he can use to get around that part? I think there's a thing about not recognising marriages where both partners didn't consent (it's voidable) - if it was an arranged marriage, was this a worry?

Please please go and speak to a professional, try and get copies of everything you can get your hands on financially and don't tell him your plans if he's

@Persuaderama i have registered an interest in the properties on the land registry, so he wont be able to transfer ownership without me knowing. I still haven't filed for the divorce yet, but my lawyer has advised I need to register an interest. However, as they are investment properties, if I haven't made any financial contribution into acquiring them, it's not possible for me to stop him from selling. though i would still be notified.

Has anyone experienced having their historical child maintenance completely wiped out by the DWP.
It took years and years to try to get maintenance through the CSA, dealing with a non compliant, narcissistic ex husband, who had no intention in providing for his children.
These were hard and very stressful years and was also extremely frustrating that the CSA did not have the power or resources to ensure that my husband contributes to the financial upbringing of his children, he ignored all contact from the CSA, even though he was living with his Mum in the next road to me, often rubbing my nose in his flash cars and holidays, whilst we scrimped.
To cut a very long and upsetting journey short, and after fighting all the way I was awarded an amount of £30,000, it went to court and a charge was put on the house, for when I came to sell we could retrieve this.
When the day finally came to sell and settle my husbands share, when I checked Land Reg, the DWP/CSA had removed the charging order without informing me. I was told by staff at the newly formed CMS that they knew there would be repercussions for these actions.
I could NOT believe the audacity, and my house was sold and he received £100,000 from the sale which then left me to have to get another mortgage.
I got my local MP involved who was amazing, and she was absolutely gobsmacked that they had done this to me. Between us we tried to retrieve the money from them and have an explanation. The Secretary of State for the Department of Work and Pensions, said that a form was sent to me and I didn’t send it back!!!! Really???
The DWP destroyed all historical records, but I kept all the documents, thankfully.
I have got nowhere with this and they seem not to care that I had put in so much hard and emotional work into fighting for maintenance, money that was rightfully mine, that they decided to take away from me.
My ex husband is now getting a new set of teeth and I am sure will enjoy spending MY money, oh and not one penny went to his grown up children to maybe get them on the housing ladder!!!!
I am now taking the legal route as I have no choice and hoping to get maybe a no win no fee deal. I won’t give up!!!
I also wanted to see if the media would be interested in my story and would be keen to hear from anyone who has experienced a similar situation. It would be great to hear from you, I can’t be the only one?

Forever hopeful,

Karen

Op, use the advice now guides at the top of this board.
read up on “fair settlement “. Fair settlement is the law that courts must apply to any financial settlement they “seal” (make legal), that includes settlement you can agree between you and STBex (consent order) and all the way to a financial order imposed by the court. Same rules of “fair settlement “ apply.

people will be on here telling you you’re entitled to 50:50 split. Whilst you may end up that way, “fair settlement” comes first

There are around 10 or so criteria that are defined that you need to apply to your individual situation to assess how they would impact youAnd any settlement you make

As part of that process you BOTH have to do a full legal financial declaration. You do this on forms E and D81. Failure by him to disclose everything he owns fully is breaking the Law in 2 ways: contempt of court and attempting to committ fraud. Courts really do not like people who do this. 🙄

those forms list all categories of items you need to declare: income, investments, all properties, pensions, savings and all other assets like cars etc.
who gets what is immaterial as to whether it gets listed. Everything gets listed and then you start to decide how to split those assets

whilst right now he’ll spout off anything to scare you, if you have an English legal marriage (Scot’s law is different), all assets are viewed as joint, whether they are in one individual’s sole name. In effect you have a 50% right to ownership - but as I said don’t confuse that with an automatic 50:50 split as financial agreement.

Right now first arm yourself with full detials on how financial agreements can be made and “fair settlement”, and find out about child custody if that applies, and find out about the process of the divorce itself . The 3 processes run in parallel but aren’t directly linked. Go to link above ADVICE NOW and also to the government divorce page on line which is brilliant too and very easy to follow. You’ll find all the forms you need including D81 and form E

Next go on line and raise the petition. You do NOT need a solicitor for this or any part of the actual legal divorce . The law changed last year and the site has been designed specially for people to do it themsleves without a solicitor. You do not have an opportunity any more to cite reasons, or to not agree to the divorce. It is now enough for one person to say the marriage has broken down. All divorces follow the same timeline and take a minimum of 26 weeks

thirdly, once you’ve raised the petition and told him do not enter into any discussion with him on financial settlement until he has completed form E and D81. Just keep repeating this. Say firmly and clearly to anything he raises about financial matters, any threats etc, “I won’t discuss anything about financial agreements until you have completed forms E and then D81.”. If he refuses, then I’m afraid he is playing silly buggers and you’ll have to get a solicitors to threaten him into doing that. But you can’t/must not agree to anything without that declaration and you being confident he hasn’t broken the law by trying to hide assets.

if he reads the process for himself, he’ll realise that the least expensive, quickest and less stressful route is to fully declare everything and reach a consent order with you. He can go to court but that’ll take months/years and cost £1000s in solicitors.

Once you’ve read about fair settlement and done a rough Form E based on what you know he has and you have (a guesstimate if you like) you can then sort of work out what reasonable settlement would be awarded to you by a court, and therefore what sort of consent order arrangment you’d be looking at at minimum.

no one can comment here on what you’d get. We don’t know your situation re fair settlement nor do we know exactly all assets you both own. But you do know a lot about that, and with careful use of these sites you can get a handle on it , to reduce your fear and give you confidence to shrug off his threats

rememeber that fair settlement is defined in a law, an act of parliament the reason this is done is to make sure that divorces don’t end with someone destitute and relying on benefits and tax payers, unless there is not enough money for both of you and you’ll both be reliant on benefits. Clearly with his wages, your home, the other properties , there is no way on gods earth you’re going to be struggling to afford to buy a house and support your kids.

read, read, read…do your research