Please can you tell me the steps when agreeing amongst ourselves the financial split

[StrangeWeirdoEvensitselfOut]

Husband and I are divorcing. It's amicable.
Please can you let me know the steps we have to go through to make the split of finances legally binding.

We have two children together and are in the process of agreeing how to split things.

We applied for the divorce a couple of months ago. We can apply for the conditional order in July...but I don't even know what that means.

If husband is saying you don't need a solicitor ... it means you definitely do.

This site is really useful

https://divorce.wikivorce.com/

Watching as I’m in the same position.

Have you agreed the finances and just want to proceed now? Or are you asking how to split the finances

Also in same position. I'm feeling under a lot of pressure to not use a solicitor. He's thrown back at me that he now feels under pressure to spend money he doesn't have to on something we could do ourselves.

I'm getting legal advice but I'm not going to use my solicitor to write letters to him as we live together. He has used a resolution solicitor to get legal advice from too. I know about his finances neither of us are high earner with massive pensions so I don't want all our money to get used up on solicitor fees when we can do it ourself. I still want to get it legally binding at the end though.

We are in the process of agreeing I'm pretty sure by the end of the week we would have agreed.

I think legal queen who you can find on Instagram has done a video (maybe it's on you tube) on how to do this yourself.

Divorce online did mine

https://www.gov.uk/money-property-when-relationship-ends/apply-for-consent-order

To OP

Going through the courts will cost a fortune. My ex turned the divorce into a contest and a third of the matrimonial assets were spent on legal costs. For some reason they could not work out that the more that was spent on legal fees the less there would be at the end to split.

You can do things amicably and doesn't mean he is hiding anything at all

I just filled in the D81 form with ex - we both signed it and had a solicitor do the consent order paperwork

We worked it out ourselves, still need a solicitor to write a consent order, still not done as I begrudge £400 to put onto headed notepaper what we agreed! Should be allowed to diy in my opinion

When my ex and I split we too were amicable. We decided between ourselves what we wanted to happen and what the money split would be then I went to a solicitor to do the legal stuff, told her what we wanted. She advised against only one solicitor but ex and I trusted each other and I told him everything that was discussed - good job I did as when he received the first letter with all the legal speak it sounded so much worse than it had when we wrote out the claims for unreasonable behaviour together rin. Our first financial order was refused by the judge as he thought I should be claiming on exH police pension but I had decided not to and second application went through once I explained that I understood and was happy with the arrangement.

@mitogoshi

I know what you mean about the consent order, but take comfort in the fact that it is binding and can be used to hold either person to account if they default.

My advice is to get a good lawyer and go to court and fight for your rights to the full extent of the law.

I also tried to keep everything “amicable” and appease my ex because I just wanted peace. As a result I got completely screwed over trying to settle things among ourselves. Don’t do it and just go to court instead.

This is what I wanted to avoid so we just settled among ourselves without spending much in lawyers fees.

However I was under great pressure from him to appease him because he was hiding money and dissipating assets and involved in criminal activities also. Looking back I would have been much better off going to court to litigate the divorce and spending money on lawyers fees to pursue my rights. If I could do it over I would always go to court and fight.

@Stacy2024

My ex was the applicant, but forgot that placed the burden of proof on themselves. They made many allegations of hidden assets, but never provided evidence. They jumped from one solicitor to another in the hope they would get their own ways

So, three different judges dismissed their applications as unrealistic and awarded costs against. Also, at the final hearing, the judge ruled against my ex and asked the question:

That the applicant has had three cost orders against them, does that not demonstrate the applicant’s demands were unreasonable?

Ex’s solicitor number 4 could not answer.

Ex was charged £10K for the final hearing (in 2016) compared to my £1.5K. So, they ended up worse off compared to the offer made two year’s early.

Was ex badly advised, or did they ignore the advice given and their solicitors took the money? I came to the conclusion it was the later. Their solicitors did not charge her anything until the final hearing as they knew from my Form E that there was significant cash available. So, that lulled the ex into thinking they would not have to pay anything.

So, don’t make assumption that involvement of solicitors will get you a better result as their costs must be taken into account. Likewise, if you are the applicant you will have to provide evidence. The respondent does not have to disprove anything.