I don't understand how it works with the financial order.

[divorce1011]

I'm currently going through a divorce. I applied for the divorce around three or four months ago.

I don't understand what happens during this process. My ex partner is very very reluctant to go through solicitors. I have mentioned applying for a full disclosure because a solicitor (free consultation) told me about that, but my ex does not want to do this. I don't know how everything is divided 50-50 unless it does go through a solicitor?

I cannot go through mediation with my ex partner due to past abuse and manipulation. It would be a horrible process going through mediation.

Does anyone have any experience of this? And any advice please?

Also, I don't want this to cost an absolute fortune. My solicitor said that to apply for the full disclosure, I will be paying them around £1500.

Are you agreed on 50:50? And have you had advice that this is fair?
Is your ex hiding money (potentially)?
We did our calculations ourselves using the divorce form.
Can you draft something and ask him to agree it?
Have you looked at www.iamlip.com?

My ex is quite an abusive person. They want 60% of everything. I spoke with several solicitors and had free consultations and they all advised this would not happen because we earn roughly the same amount. So it would be 50-50.

My ex seems to think that this means I need to give them 50% of everything in my accounts and they keep telling me there is nothing in their accounts and that they have no money so they can't give me anything. I don't think this is true and they obviously have a pension as well.

I have paid for everything over the years. The mortgage and bills, along with many other expenses. Such as cars and holidays and things like that. So, I am fairly sure that my ex has savings somewhere. Otherwise, what on earth has happened with all their money?

They are very reluctant for us to go through solicitors and has just said for me to transfer half of my money to them and let's just leave it at that. Obviously all solicitors have told me not to do this

You can do this yourself OP. What have you actually filed with the courts so far?

I see your problem. You may need to go to court to get that disclosure. I don’t know the procedure though.

I know you are saying you don’t want it to drag on or cost a fortune, but believe me, it will potentially cost you a LOT more than £1500 if you just decide to send them half of your money and leave it at that. Definitely push through with the full disclosure, for me the fact he is so resistant to do that would be all the more reason to absolutely proceed with it, there may well be plenty to hide.

Are you going to be using a solicitor to manage the divorce? It is costly but as he has been abusive and manipulative in the past it would save you a lot of drama.

You obviously shouldn't transfer him half of your money! I think it's very likely he is hiding money from you.

I applied for the divorce myself online and paid for it online. So I wasn't doing that through a solicitor. But it's just the financial side of things that I'm not sure what to do.

Definitely go through a solicitor OP

But then, does the solicitor work out exactly what should be transferred into each account and do they organise it all? Or is it up to my X to transfer those amount to me and Me to transfer to them etc?

Hi, I’m divorcing an abusive partner who doesn’t want me to know where all the money is.

I am much older, it was all joint accounts (until the last few years), I was a STAHM as my husband was in the military. He has a good private pension and I have none.

The abusive partner never wants you to use a solicitor or seek a pension sharing order. They assume they can continue to bully you into doing what they want.

The thing is, you have to bite the bullet and get the full disclosure (form E). You’ve probably been told that this involves both of you providing bank statements for the previous year. This way they can’t deny they have no money if their bank statements say different. There would be a problem if they have bank accounts you don’t know about. So if you can, have a look-see if there’s anything you can find.

Wikivorce is very good and you can down load the Form E on line to see what info is needed.

Then there is an exchange of Form E. if you believe your partners figures and they believe yours, then the solicitor will be able to work out the value of all the assets and it’s split 50/50 (depending on other factors - children, length of marriage, previous assets etc). I believe mediators can do this much cheaper, and you can do it so you don’t have to be in the same room as your partner.

My advice - find a good solicitor who you click with. If you have an abusive partner then you need all the support you can get. A solicitor will have seen it all before and be able to help you get through this.

A good solicitor won’t be all about milking you for money. You should be able to discuss with them ways of doing some of the work yourself if you wish to keep costs down.

Just remember that your solicitor charges by time - so a 10 minute chat, or a rambling phone call will cost you money.

As said above, you can’t afford not to have a solicitor with an abusive partner. But knowledge is power and research on divorce will save you money on the solicitor.

Start with wikivorce.

You both need to complete Form E which is where you declare all your assets and debts, including pensions, valuable items etc. Along with this you both need to provide a years worth of statements for all your accounts. You can review these statements and check if money is being sent to other accounts you have no sight of and that is how you would find hidden money (presuming they are not self employed where its obvs much harder to track). Only once this disclosure process is completed can you start to look at who might get what in the settlement.

@Iamnotawinp
Thank you for that. So to do the form E, that is what the solicitor charges for? Mine said it was around £1500 ?

OP. Next step: File a Form A first. Form E later.

Whats happening with the house? Is the plan that youll sell it and also give half the money to your ex? Are there children involved

Advice Now is an excellent website and when you eventually do your form E, go to YouTube and watch advicenow’s step by step guide to filling out the form E. Just type in Advice now form E in the YT search bar and it will come up.
But do your form A first. You’ll get directions (next steps) from the court after the form A has been filed.
Do it yourself. You may need a solicitor down the road but not yet.

It really depends on what you've got between you. Do you own a house? Do either of you have any savings or investments? Any other assets? All of this has to be disclosed in Form E. Have either of you been co-habiting with a new partner for 6 months or more? That is also relevant.

You can make a financial application without a solicitor but if you have any meaningful assets between you, you really need a solicitor. And it will cost a lot more than £1500.

I'm just going through this. Tried mediation but it was hopeless. You issue Form A - there is a fee but those on low income get a fee exemption info on govt website. The Court then sends a timetable which will include a date for Form E - mine was about 2 months after court registered Form A and instructions as to what you need to provide eg house valuations. If you have assets or any complex situation its worth paying someone to check your Form E but if its simple the AdviceNow website and looking stuff up online is fine. Form E requires 12 months of every bank and savings account, pension valuations etc but does rely on the other person being honest about hidden savings. Pension info can take a while to come back so apply for those now. After Form E you can ask questions eg about where money has gone / why no savings/ query any missing pension info. There is a section on Form E where you can set out info on contribution made. There are plenty of DIY / LIP books for around £20 written by lawyers you can get to help as well as info online - you need to know what type of order you want to apply for eg pension sharing. With someone who is being unreasonable there may not be any point in getting a lawyer in the early steps if you can manage that yourself. You need to get to Form E stage. If they lie on the record and this is found out this will backfire badly on them. The crucial time to get advice is once you have all the info after Form E. I would recommend starting work on a draft Form E early on as it takes a while to get all the info together and its worth going back through old financial info you have eg if you made capital contributions to house or evidence on past contribution. This is also useful info which explains how judges and lawyers will approach cases. https://www.judiciary.uk/related-offices-and-bodies/advisory-bodies/family-justice-council/resources-and-guidance/financial-needs/

If you need some help with the financial side see if this might help a little - https://iamlip.com/help-guides/the-court-process-of-dividing-your-marital-assets-finances-and-pensions/ they helped me out a lot.
You could try doing a lot of it yourself, which is 100% possible especially with free guides online like these, and then ask your solicitor to do what you feel like you can't do.

Thank you so much for your replies. They're really helpful. And for the links. I'll have a look at them.

@grumpyoldeyeore
Is the conditional order anything to do with this? When I applied for the divorce I received a notification that I can apply for a conditional order from next week. Is this where we sort out the financial stuff?

Hi @divorce1011 - conditional order is the old degree nisi and nothing to do with financials.

@SoRainbowRhythms
So do I just apply for it on the government website? Does it cost extra to do this? Do I need to get my ex to fill anything out on it? Apparently I can apply for it from next week. I thought they are meant to send me something. I didn't realise Im meant to apply for something it until now when I've just looked!

@divorce1011 , sorry, that was the only thing I'm actually certain on 😅😬 I have to do my form e soon so was reading with interest! Good luck x

You can apply for your conditional order (decree nisi) but don’t apply for your decree absolute (final order) until you’ve got your financial agreement sorted (financial consent order).

So my experience with a financial order - and I would imagine all will have to follow the same guidelines??

Me and my ex decided on a clean break - solicitors advised to do a financial order as I had more money than them and to protect my child who was not exh’s.

The solicitors got myself to fill in a full disclosure form & sent one to him to fill out which he did.

We then sent it to the courts and asked for a financial order to enforce the clean break and protect either of us from trying to claim anything in the 2 year window.

Judge assessed it, decided a clean break would not be fair, sent back to solicitors to agree an amount I would pay him in line with the money he had paid towards my mortgage over the years & as I had a bigger pension. An amount was proposed & sent back to court which was agreed.

Solicitors advised that if we couldn’t come to an amount seen as ‘fair’ by the judge then they would have had us both attend court for this to be decided.

So as far as I am aware your ex will not be able to refuse full disclosure as surely the judge who looks at the financial order application can insist on this?