Financial agreement - he wants to walk away with nothing/very little

[Patsaysit]

Hi,
my stbxh wants to walk away with nothing/very little.

I have repeatedly encouraged mediation, he has refused. We are both in agreement that we want this done quickly and cheaply.

I have the children full time and have my own house (secured since separation). We are not looking to take anything from each other’s pensions.

It’s simply dividing up the equity of the family home. Has anyone else been in this position? How did it pan out?

I know that the financial order has to be stamped by a judge and have got my head around the process I think! It’s just what to offer stbxh really.

Any help gratefully received even if it helps me with the first solicitor meeting.

@QueenCamilla will you get divorced at some point?

I can see why this would be tempting.

I half wondered about selling the house, dividing the money and then getting divorced in the future.

No idea if this is possible, sensible etc.

@Thinkitsrainingagain well done on providing the better life and moving on. That is absolutely on my horizon.

When my exH and I divorced we were totally amicable and discussed everything between us before approaching a solicitor. As we were amicable we only had one solicitor and I communicated everything she advised. I didn't want any of his pension as I knew mine would be more valuable in the long run - he was more than generous about equity in the house and our meagre savings. The judge threw out first application out as he felt I should have claimed on ex's pension but once the reasoning was put before him, he let it through. Our children were older teens so no childcare issues.

The judges don't like this kind of thing because there is a worry about hidden abuse.

So if one partner is abusing the other, they may very well have threatened (for example) if you try and take any of my money I'll kill you.

You will need to write an explanation of why the split is so uneven,

@Octavia64 it’s because I’ll have the children 100% of the time.

But I see your point.

Yes, and that's a good reason.

In general if someone is giving up legal rights, then the standard way of to deal with it is to get them to see a solicitor, tell the solicitor their job is to make sure that the person fully understands what they are giving up, and then get them to sign effectively a waiver.

So for example say that you are offered some money in return for a longer notice period. The company pays for you to see a solicitor (an independent one) who explains your rights and what you are giving up, and then you sign to give informed consent.

So in your circumstances, get the pensions valued (yes I know it takes forever) and then set up a meeting with a solicitor for him if you can so he understands what he is walking away from.

If not, then you either discuss it with him or send him a document by email and get him to say clearly that he wants to walk away with nothing.

Incidentally, I strongly recommend doing the house transfer of ownership while you are still married as it saves you a whole load of paperwork and hassle.

It remains a marital asset no matter whose name it is owned under.

If you want a large disparity in settlement ( eg 100% of equity to one partner while pensions untouched) a judge will want reassurance that you’ve both had independent legal advice

you can still work amicably together to reach agreement but it’s possible it don’t get signed off if you’ve both not done so

it is also likely to depend on values being discussed eg £1m equity v. £60k equity

@Octavia64 the house is being put on the market in the coming weeks. Like it still make sense to transfer ownership?

No, probably no point transferring ownership in those circs.

But you ARE going to court, the financial remedy is a court order. You will be required to submit paperwork for all assets and debts.

Things have moved on since I divorced so I'm not fully up to speed with current proceedures. Have a look at the wikivorce forum.

If he's not going to be seeing the dc (why?) that would be a very big reason for you to have a significant share of the assets. But I'd also be wondering what he's hiding if he's apparently OK with handing over everything - the judge (even in the simplest cases) will be asking how your stbx can survive with no assets - has there been an inheritance, lottery win, is he in a new relationship where he is housed sufficiently, is his actual pension valuation actually massive?

Ye gods.

I hope your will is water-tight. If you are still married then the laws of intestacy apply if one of you dies without a will - your not-ex will inherit everything and have the legal right to make decisions about your affairs.

It's quick and relatively cheap to get divorced these days, and prevents a fuck-tonne of upset should the worst happen. And yes, I AM speaking from bitter, bitter experience.

Family member (male) did this twice.

He walked away from everything(except the children), gave each wife whatever they wanted - house, money etc and just carried on with his life by starting over again from scratch.

He is now with wife #3 they have no children and he finally seems happy (if somewhat poor)

There are cheap legal firms who will do the financial order for you. You will need a current pension valuation as this is required. You then need a brief explanation of any inequality- I am responsible for school fees and did not seek maintenance due to the disparity in our income. He got the car as he needed it for work. As long as the judge believes the split to be amicable and fair to both parties then it will get stamped by the courts. The financial orders is applied for between the decree nisi and the decree absolute. You can do everything except the financial order yourself, the latter needs legal oversight. I

@Notoriety but how! Reading these responses seems that the judge will only stamp the order if they deem ot to be fair…

@Worldgonecrazy thank you. Is the pension valuation compulsory (I can Google this!)? He simply won’t do these things and our pensions are both tiny.

Perhaos this takes me back to the waiver idea…

Yes, that's exactly how we were going about it - divvy everything up permanently and then divorce. The house is sold already and we each have our own place.
It would be more straight forward now.

The only thing is, as neither of us want to remarry, we have lost the impetus to divorce. It might even benefit us and our son in the long-term financially to stay married so we might just plod along as is!

If you have tiny pensions and they are similar then put your figure in - you will find the valuation on your last annual statement. This will have been posted to you or the can phone for an update. If he just won’t do it because he’s an arse I’m not sure how best to proceed?

DH and his ex agreed their settlement. Kids were 50:50, no maintenance or claim on pension. DH bought ex out and stayed in house.
They got legal advice a couple of years later when they decided to formalise the situation and get divorced. Solicitor said as they had settled everything already they could do their own divorce. Which they did.

When i divorced I kept all the marital assets and my excellent pension. My ex walked away with his tiny pension and I waived the right to any child maintenance. We didn’t need to even provide valuations for any of it. It suited us both to do it this way (and tbh was fair as I had paid for it all) - we used an online divorce service and the divorce was rubber stamped by a judge. This was in Scotland though so perhaps judges are more involved in other parts of the UK

No idea of the ‘how’ but it was a while ago when divorce took a long time.

It perhaps ‘helped’ that both of his ex wives had had affairs - the entire family thought this person was bonkers to do what he did. He was and is a devoted father and I guess he thought it would be easier for the children if he just gave in to demands.

Is there a chance he has come into an even larger amount of money he doesn't want you to have access to?

Is your stbxh well mentally? He's cutting himself out if his DC's lives permanently, giving up financial assets, refusing to engage with the legal process ... will a judge sign off on this under these circumstances?

I got divorced without a solicitor. It was all done online, very simply, using the relevant links on the .gov.uk website. The only cost was the £500-odd fee for simply getting divorced. I think the process has changed slightly now, but I submitted the petition (i.e. filled out the form) online, it automatically got sent to my now ex for him to read and he was asked to fill in a slightly different form online; about 6 months after this we both received an email saying the decree nisi was granted and to continue with the divorce 'click here' and that was it. I got an instant email back saying the decree absolute was granted.

We also both agreed that we didn't want anything from each other in terms of cash/pensions. We didn't get a financial agreement (which I do regret, as I would feel more secure if I had one, but I just wanted to be divorced ASAP and wanted it to be as amicable as possible, which it never is when money comes into it.) It's also a requirement that a solicitor must complete the financial order, which would have cost me £1000, and my ex didn't want the hassle and cost of finding his own solicitor to review it, going to court, potentially having a judge reject it etc. Yes, it is a risk (for both parties) not to get a financial order, but we felt it was worth it.

https://www.gov.uk/divorce/file-for-divorce

@MrsCuthbertson I don’t know. Having said that, I did absolutely everything in our marriage, I was the grown up. Now that I am not in that role, he is potentially a little lost.

Not my responsibility anymore. Believe me, I’ve tried.

The children don’t see him due to abuse.