Form E - confused about process

[Magmum75]

Am I correct in thinking that Form E is strictly speaking for the courts to consider in a hearing over finances, but that it can be used voluntarily for divorcing couples to declare their financial situation?

I am in a situation where I expect, if I issue my Form E to my ex, he will not reciprocate or take many months to provide it and it is likely to be incomplete.
This is likely to be a combination of him being lousy at admin and not wanting to be transparent. Despite him initiating the divorce he is woefully uninformed abbout the process and thinks we can just agree 50/50 on the house, wave a magic wand and its all done!!! His only incentive to play ball is he wants his money out, but I don't know if that is enough for him to not hold up the whole process.

Would you wait to see if this is how it plays out or save the time and go straight to court?

in most cases it’s absolutely advisable to avoid court
its costly ( both £ and emotionally) , takes long time and becomes adversarial in nature

its best to educate yourselves on fair outcomes and what that might mean , accept that neither of you will come out winning’ or get exactly what you want, both will be poorer

then negotiate, using mediation if nevessary

if you then are very far apart ( on the basis one party is not completely u realistic in expectation) only then start going via court process

I think you have to do a form E anyway. I did that then my solicitor used it to draft the consent order and ensure it seemed fair.

Although it went to court for sign off we never attended, I assume it's just a formality in many cases.

And if your looking for more than 50% you’ll need to demonstrate why that’s a fair outcome and on a needs basis for both parties that is possible

Thanks for the responses but he question really is whether I should wait around to see if he volunteers his Form E to me? Even if we agree 50/50 split - its of all assets and until I know what his are ....

I know he will be reluctant to do mediation or use a lawyer as he doesn't want to spend the money.

I'm really confused as to what forms we have to complete. I've submitted my divorce application to the court which has just been accepted. And we have completed a D81 Statement of information for a consent order in relation to a financial remedy. We've come to a financial agreement between ourselves without involving solicitors, as we've done a 50/50 split of the house and his private pension scheme. I've taken out a mortgage for his part of the house and paid him off and had his name taken off the deeds. He has bought a new house with this equity and part of his pension pot. We agreed to divorce - there was no reason to delay - but now he's saying I should have waited to start the divorce process - although I've no idea why, there's absolutely no chance of reconciliation, he certainly doesn't want that. I got him to sign the D81 form a few months ago. Is there anything else I should be doing now? I don't think we can submit our application for a financial order until 20 weeks, so March time. But before he moves out of the house (shortly), I just want to check if there is anything else I should be completing or getting him to sign, as I know it will be difficult once he goes. There is no spousal maintenance and no child support, no shared savings other than his private pension pot which I've been paying into, so it's been relatively simple. And because we do have young adult children, we've tried to make it as easy as possible to cause them as little pain as possible. (Although we're currently having an argument as he wants to keep keys to the house as he says it will take him a couple of weeks to move all of his stuff out - and seems to think I'm being unreasonable for not thinking that's ok.)

@bishp01 you are somewhat further down the line than me! My understanding is you need to pay to get the Consent Order drafted and and to the court - you can't do this yourself, but if everything is agreed its not too costly. Re the keys, let it go - my ex retains his keys to the marital home even now.

@bishp01

The order should be nisi granted, consent order agreed. Absolute granted . My solicitor advised against doing anything with regard to remortgaging before this was all complete. If you are still married surely the risk is the assets all still part of a single pot. My bank asked to see the financial order before they would allow me to remortgage in my own name and take him off.

@Magmum75 you don't need to do form E. We didn't, we both had a good idea about what each had and we're amicable. I created a spreadsheet with all our assets on and used that to work out the split and to fill in D81. it's all been signed off. When I needed the actual amounts from XH I sent him an email with the requests to which he'd reply, was much easier than getting him to fill in the form. We only used a solicitor to draft the consent order and XH had a one off consult to say he'd had legal advice as split was in my favour.

@bishp01 you seem to have done it the wrong way round, it shouldn't be a major issue as sounds like it is a straightforward split. The risk if you do the finances and buy new properties etc is that the consent order may not be agreed as fair by the court, but this is less of a risk if you’ve split it 50/50 anyway. I'm surprised your mortgage provider didn't ask for an approved consent order before agreeing to remortgage. As you’ve found out, by not starting the divorce process early on, you have a long wait to get it approved.

Well the circumstances were that things came to light earlier this year - about his extra marital activities, which basically ended the marriage immediately. I would have liked him to leave but he had nowhere to go and couldn't afford to rent. He basically went looking at houses immediately and immediately put an offer in. He wanted to try and force me to sell the house straight away, but my circumstances were that I needed to stay in the area and I couldn't have afford to buy a new property here. So the best thing was for me to buy him out. I had to pay the solicitors to do a transfer of equity for the mortgage provider to be satisfied, but it all went through smoothly. He doesn't even want us to start the divorce now. He doesn't want to be with me and is very excited about starting his new life. He wanted me to pay him his half now so he could get started in this new life, but he wanted me to wait until next year at some point to start the divorce - and he didn't want me to take his name off the deeds of this house either - he said I could do that later and that I could "trust him" not to do anything dodgy..... So in order to try and get everything through as smoothly and as amicably as possible, I left starting the divorce until after the house had been signed over to me and after he had signed for his own house. That way he had purchased the house while we were still married, so that would also be classed as a marital asset, should he try to be funny about it. And that way on the consent order, we each have a house and his pension then makes up the rest of the value.

@Fourmagpies but I don't know how much he's worth because I don't know the value of his pensions or what he has in his own bank accounts. I also don't know his current salary/any bonuses paid etc etc

I used divorce.com it takes you through the process quite simply from what I remember

I would draft filling in the D81 form if I were you, OP, but not try to polish it, make it perfect, until you get a decent version from almost-X.

If we didn't need a Mesher Order then I think we could have managed without the D81 and done whole thing ourselves (no solicitor). We are still very amicable but going with a budget lawyer just to do the very final steps means moving at lawyer speed & probably delayed our Final Full divorce status by 3-4 months.

@Magmum75 neither did I, though I had a reasonable idea so when he gave the information I was happy to accept what he told me. You either need to decide what you're happy to accept or force his hand to provide the correct information, which will most likely mean going to court and exchanging form Es. Have a read of the Advice Now guides pinned at the top of the page, and maybe send the finance one to your ex so that he understands what the process is and what is fair. Are you on good enough terms that you could suggest sitting down together to go through it? Tell him it'll save him solicitor's fees.