Ex refusing any financial settlement - would this work?

[userzH]

My ex is a twat and refusing to do any sort of financial settlement with me.

Though we have very little to sort.

I'm thinking about asking my solicitor to write up a letter which we both sign, agreeing that we will NOT make any financial claims against each other in the future.

Would this actually stand for anything if my ex did make a claim against me in the future?

I may inherit a lot of money one day and I want to make sure my ex cannot get his hands on it. I want a clean break order, he is refusing to comply.

I am getting legal aid for divorce as he is abusive however I can't afford to take him to court over this. My legal aid won't cover it as we have no major assets which I'm thankful for.

My dad has suggested we get something in writing that says he can't claim anything against me.

Does anyone know if some official paper work like this would be suffice to protect me in the future?

X

Go to ADVICE NOW link above

the only way to get a legally binding agreement is with a consent order “sealed” in court at time of your final divorce order.

if you are potentially relying on future inheritance then you’re taking a massive risk not to do this.

ADVICE NOW will explain how to draw up a consent order. You can get your solicitor to submit it to court, but

1. It requires both your signatures to say you both agree
2. the court requires both of you have made a legal financial declaration on form d81 (form E is detailed version of this),
3. the court may reject the consent order if your ex doesn’t take legal advice and the court thinks “fair settlement “ is not being met. Read ADVICE NOW guides on fair settlement law

note, unless the person had died that you think you will inherit from, the court can’t take this sum into account nor is it included in D81. as most people know inheritances are guaranteed - the benefactor can change their mind or end up in care and frazzle through the money at a rate of £2000k per WEEK (that’s not unusual)

Should add, if he refuses, then point out you WILL take him to court, and the judge will hear the case and make the decision.
the court costs involved will cost him a lot more as will his own solicitor fees.

I am not clear why your legal aid won’t cover this- have a look at advice now on this topic.

But he won't sign anything. He is refusing to co-operate in any of the financial side of things so I don't know what else to do? He just wants a quick divorce and that's all.

My solicitor says my legal aid won't cover it as we have no joint assets. The clean break order is just to protect me from the future but that's all. Nothing else needs sorting and my solicitor says legal aid won't cover that

Sorry, more searching came up with this

But if that happens, don’t worry – because there are number of options available to you.
Firstly your solicitor should remind the other side of the potential consequences of failing to file a complete Form E - you could write a formal letter yourself pre involving a solicitor

Secondly they should ask court to grant a costs order for any wasted hearings – and in the absence of a Form E, your First Directions Appointment in any application to settle divorce finances will be largely wasted.

At the first hearing, your solicitor can also ask for what is known as “a penal notice” attached to a direction for the other side to file their Form E. This is serious. Failure to comply with a penal notice can result in the other side being held in contempt of court. And that carries really serious consequences such as imprisonment, fines, or asset seizure.

ADVICE now has a list of solicitor to do just specific tasks, so this may be something you could ask them to do as a 1 off letter to start with, outlining the consequences if he doesn’t do this voluntarily

Do a bit more searching on line yourself too

Your solicitor is not being helpful here….theyre basically saying you’re stuffed 🤷🏼‍♀️
id take time to do your own research using ADVICE NOW and a good search. Then go back to solicitor with very specific task you want them to do “wirte this letter I’ve drafted in legal speak and sign and send to him”….dont let the solicitor drive this - this is where you will be running up high costs

it is a massive risk to divorce without a consent order. A court might take a future claim on board with an advocate letter you and he signed. But if it isn’t legally worded and not recognised , it’ll be easy for solicitor to argue to get it overturned. Also without the legal financial declaration done at time of divorce, he could lie about yours or his assets at time of divorce. It’s a can of worms.

you have to remain as unemotional as possible, and make sure he understand he WILL HAVE to do this, and it’ll be him picking up costs for your legal frustrations the more he pisses about.

I just don't understand any of it.

He is refusing to send his bank statements.

Can the clean break order go ahead without him showing his finances to my solicitor?

You have some options. Ultimately your ex can't make claim against money you don't have yet. The divorce is to settle assets you built during the marriage and if you have no DC and nothing to split particularly, no judge will do any more.
https://www.divorce-online.co.uk/blog/ex-refuses-to-sign-clean-break/

In response to your op that is not worth anything and won’t stand up to anything in future

a court can compel him to do disclosure, and pursue if he doesn’t comply

yiu can read up on the processes and forms online to educate yourself

he can’t just ignore

You can refuse to sign the divorce papers until the financial order is done. This may focus his mind.

You can request the absolute not be granted until after consent order sorted. If you got it, he wouldn't be able to get his divorce until financials sorted. Any hope he wants the quickie divorce so can marry someone else? Once remarried he can't come after you for settlement.

He is in a new relationship and it wouldn't surprise me if he wanted to marry again - I hope he does as I know that cuts all our financial ties regardless!

I knew he would be a nightmare to divorce. He thinks I'm attacking him when actually I'm doing the opposite

Who was the higher earner in your relationship and who is likely to be in the future?

If he thinks it is him, point out that without a clean break, you could come back into his life in 10/15/20 years time and claim half of his pension. With regards to the assumed inheritance, he wouldn’t be able to claim that if you had already spent it all or if it were tied up in a trust.

If he thinks he stands to lose out, he might focus and agree to the financial paperwork.

Ridiculous that you can't choose to marry under a nuptial agreement in UK.

Where I live you can make that choice. Sure helps to know he loves you and not marrying you for any future inheritance.

Any inheritance I get is for my children, not the fucker who fucked off into the sunset.

So if OP got a solicitor to draw up a written agreement (like her dad suggests) which both parties signed, saying he can't touch anything in the future, that wouldn't cover her?

Side note: surely this is exactly the same as signing a clean break order so ex won't sign this either, but just on the hypothetical situation he did, if it was a proper legal document, signed and witnessed, would it really be ignored?

1. he CAN have a quick divorce and still do the consent order. It could take a few hours at most to sit down and complete forms D81 and draft an agreement in laymans terms.
2. or he can drag his heals, and make the divorce long, expensive for him, and stressful by refusing to engage in the appropriate processes. You need to say you will NOT proceed without the consent order. Simple.

No it won’t co we her!
she needs a formal agreed and court signed off clean break order
doesn’t mean they need to go to court to reach settlement but does mean an official judge ratified and signed order

There was a really eye opening thread recently about someone who hadn't sorted out the financials on divorce and the ex spouse was coming after money many years down the line. Apparently in some circumstances they can do this so I would definately make sure the financials were all signed and put to bed before divorce fully finalised.

It isn’t the same thing because

1. it wouldn’t be accompanied by the legal financial declaration. And without a legal fiancnail declaration it could be challenged. Even sealed consent orders can be challenged later if it is shown that one party lied on the legal financial disclosure, - it’s actually 2 potential crimes to lie- contempt of court and potential fraud. this is because you cannot, and shouldn’t, make any legally binding agreement until you have a full legally binding disclosure of what there is to share out. It is the FIRST step that needs to be done, before even discssuing how you’ll split assets. There are formal legal forms D81, form E etc, they’re not thst difficult to fill in yourselves.
2. if it doesn’t go through divorce court as part of decree final/ final order the court cannot determine it meets the law on “fair settlement “ and therefore could also be challenged later

courts in uk do not take pre nuts or post nups or any other docs into account when looking at division of assets in MARRIAGE. Pre divorce or post divorce. The only time they will consider it is where “fair settlement “ is met in law, and there are “excess” assets (ie it is the preserve of very wealthy )

sure, if you’re not married them courts will take into account . But marriage is different. Obviously. Marriage is as much a financial agreement as it is a legal agreement and a romantic intent.

Basically my ex is absolutely hopeless when it comes to admin. He is also very very stubborn and won't do this purely out of spite towards me. That is the only reason.

He is extremely abusive with police involvement.

He is a gambling addict and up to his eyeballs in debt. He is self employed with zero pension so unfortunately I can't even use that to try get him to be on side.

He does earn a lot more than I do.

My gut feeling says he would never come after any inheritance as he simply wouldn't know how to get a solicitor and go through the whole process. That would also be at a cost to him to get a solicitor and do the court costs of trying to get any inheritance etc I may have. He never ever has any money so I genuinely can't see him ever making a claim.

He js beyond useless - I used to do all the life admin.

That being said, I'd like to have the peace of mind knowing that he can't.

He needs to complete a form E/D81. That’s a legal requirement for court to seal the consent order (it’s called consent order not clean break. You can get a court to make the decision and court will still try to get a clean break type agreement. Clean break just means you settle at divorce with no future passing of money )

you need to read ADVICE NOW GUIDES

youll waste huge amounts of m9ney keep going to solicitors where you “don’t understand” read, take time to understand. Go to solicitor in command of what specific task you need them to do and use what funds you have wisely.

it really isn’t complicated as a process.

the complication is getting through his thick skull thst all he’s doing is delaying the inevitable. If you have his financial info, and are confident you know it all, you can even fill in damn financial disclosure form yourself and get him to sign it.

the fact your solicitor is asking for his bank state,ents says to me you’re getting solicitor to do all work and paying dearly for privilege . It’s over £3.59 per minute every time your solicitor tells you he’s still not had the bank statements. All the solicitor is doing with them is completely a form E and D81. If you’ve already got the information that form E andD81 need then for god sake, just fill in yourself. Use the ADVICE NOW guides and even the government divorce on line site.

you CAN help yourself here. Don’t just push everything onto solicitor. You need funds for solcitors to do the things you can’t like take him to court for not singing forms and wasting courts time. Right now though there is much you can potentially do yourself, with effort, for free

believe in yourself. You CAN understand it. Take a deep breath, take time to read the guides. Re read and reread till you do understand, and are feeling confident about your rights,the process etc

@Appleofmyeye2023 no I'm getting legal aid as I've stated. I'm not paying my solicitor anything at all.

My solicitor is saying that to take this further to the court, I won't qualify for legal aid and it will cost me a fortune and I don't have that money to be able to pay for it.

My ex is going to refuse to do anything at all and I cannot speak to him directly about this as he is abusive.

We also have a child together and I have to think about how all of this stress (which he is causing!) is going to affect everything else. He's given me ptsd from his behaviour.

I will email my solicitor back tomorrow and tell them we need to take it further

@Appleofmyeye2023 also my solicitor has said I will be shown his bank statements and he will be shown mine to prove to each that we are not hiding any money from each other

Recognising all of this, you still have to go through the process to break the financial ties. Otherwise there will be a risk that he come back and make a claim against your assets, even those accrued after the marriage. Infamously happened to a lottery winner.

Stop trying to own his stubbornness. Explain to him that you will follow the process to end the financial ties and secure a clean break. Tell your lawyer to do this on your behalf and see it through.

your choices are

1. follow the legal process for a clean break order
2. don’t and own the risk

He won’t sign your document anyway so why bother trying to get something that is useless.