Consent Order Not Approved

[BrinjalPickle]

As the title says our consent order hasn’t been approved. STBXH & I agreed to split house equity 50/50 and ignore pensions. Unfortunately after getting our pension valuations there is a £60k difference in my favour and court have deemed this unfair.

Is there anything we can say in our statement to court to push though our original agreement or do we have to look at a pension sharing agreement?

[nyorksdad]

This is a worry for me - waiting to hear on consent order approval but I have given the house back to my ex (as her parents bought in) and I've declared that I'm not interested in her pension, it doesn't matter to me if it's worth 1000 or ten million, we've been seperated nearly 7 years and I don't need her money.

Surely, we must have the right to say we are of sound mind and this is what we want?!

[pixiesaresmall]

Hi, if you put in the search tab "consent order not approved" quite a few posts will come up. It's not letting me be able to link in the app or I'd have shared some for you and I'm dashing out very soon so no time to fiddle!
Mine wasn't approved as not in my favour but I wasn't bothered, I wanted to just get it sorted. I asked for a private hearing with the judge and explained why and my future earning potential etc and why I just wanted to start afresh. It was granted as he could see I wasn't being coerced and had looked at everything and understood the implications. Hopefully ex partners will honour agreements you had and try this in order to get it through if it's the right thing. (Our pensions were basically equal so no point sharing).
If you don't find anything, tag me later and I willl respond after work. Good luck

[Jonathan70]

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/divorce_separation/5004058-financial-consent-order-processing-time
Heres a thread where someone was able to push hers through.
i think @nyorksdad will be fine because he will be able to write back what he’s written above and, as it appears the split is in his ex’s favour, it will probably then go through as he clearly isn’t being coerced into taking less.
As the split is in your favour, I guess it will be down to your ex to write something that similarly states that she has taken advice and why she doesn’t want to pension share.

[Anameisaname]

Was the valuation done 7 years ago when you split? If not you could put forward an argument that this was what was agreed 7 years ago and increases since then are not relevant

[ragdoll12345]

I used to work in the family court and we would see this from time to time. Do you both have legal representation, the Judge needs to be sure that if the consent order is unbalanced there is a reason for this and that the 'loosing' party has had their rights explained. If there is a good reason the Judge needs to be told

[Usernamesarenoteasy]

Mine was not approved, as it was in my favour. We'd agreed to leave each others pensions alone (his was worth a fraction of mine as he hadn't bothered setting one up) and I owned a greater percentage of the house.
We submitted evidence of the house percentage ownership, and we also wrote a letter signed and dated by both of us to indicate why we had come to our particular agreement, and that we both acknowledged the uneven split and were happy with it.
It was approved in the end.

[izzygirlis4]

Reply and explain the reasons for disparity in settlement. Ie. You are primary carer of 5 children, you came into the marriage with £100k that H has agreed not to touch, you are 10 years younger than him.

And confirm that you have both taken independent legal advice.

It should be fine

[JKM66]

pixiesaresmall do you mind saying what was the difference in your pensions. Mine vicious and petty ex has asked for a pension order but we are waiting on the CEV reports which will take forever. Our annual statements are almost the same, it could be that my benefit is £900 more than his per year. I am just a bit worried, i know i shouldn't but it has been a horror show so far. Thank you.
Apologies BrinjalPickle to piggyback on your post. Good luck.

[pixiesaresmall]

@JKM66

pixiesaresmall do you mind saying what was the difference in your pensions. Mine vicious and petty ex has asked for a pension order but we are waiting on the CEV reports which will take forever. Our annual statements are almost the same, it could be that my benefit is £900 more than his per year. I am just a bit worried, i know i shouldn't but it has been a horror show so far. Thank you.
Apologies BrinjalPickle to piggyback on your post. Good luck.

Hi, ours were definitely going to be in his favour by £900 a year at least, because he was 8 years older than me. What I pointed out the judge was the fact I had another 30 years to work, I wasn't going to be part time (for child reasons) forever and quite frankly it was all nonsense at this point because I wanted to move on with my life not argue over £900. I was also, when in full time work, the higher earner and he no ambition to move from his current role at any point. The judge was fine with that.
Look at the finer detail so earning potential, maybe bonuses, how long left to work to make up the shortfall etc. I was absolutely shafted financially by him as it was a shorter marriage and I moved to his property but sold mine (money from this had gone on the family) I didn't care I just wanted out and as long as the judge can see why you've come to that agreement, I'd say it would be fine. Point out the equality and the pointlessness of the admin and delays.

[JKM66]

Thank you pixiesaresmall.

[VenetiaHallisWellPosh]

My pension is worth a lot more than his, but he's getting 60% of the equity in our joint property. We haven't sent it to court yet, and I'm nervous about it getting passed.

[BrinjalPickle]

Thanks everyone. I’m not sure how compelling our reasons for splitting our assets the way we have are - mainly we just want to be able to house ourselves and the children & don’t care about other assets. I totally agree with nyorksdad that we should be able to just say we are of sound mind and this is what we’ve agreed.

The solicitor is going to reword our reasons and we’ll go from there.

And don’t worry about piggy backing @JKM66 - hopefully this thread will help others too.

Good luck to everyone.

[Floopani]

This happened to me exactly, 50/50 split agreed to the house, ignore the pensions but I had the far bigger pension.

We had to write a letter, signed by both of us, explaining the reasoning behind why we had reached the agreement we had and that we had legal advice. Our agreement was denied a second time, with a single question from the judge, which we answered and again reiterated this was what we wanted and it was approved.

Ten years on, I realise that actually the judge was right to question it as I was going for fully fair, despite the fact that although I had the bigger pension we were only 32/31 respectively and I was bringing up our seven year old on my own. Looking back at the paperwork now, the judge wasn't really questioning the pensions, but the house split. I was so focused on 'fairness' being 50/50 (because I could look after myself thank you very much) that I was an idiot who should have really got more legal advice.