Can my ex delay our final financial hearing?

[delboy1984]

We have our final financial hearing in September and I need it to happen. My ex is forcing me into some serious debt (I am paying all the mortgage on the family home she's living in alone) as well as my own rent elsewhere. She has stopped paying the mortgage as she says she cannot afford it (and is trying to force me into accepting her unfair out of court offer). My solicitor has advised me not to accept it and I am hoping the judge is fair come September. I'm not going to be able to continue paying the whole mortgage for much longer and I'm seriously concerned my ex will try to delay the hearing to try and force me even more into accepting the offer and push me further into debt (I am paying the mortgage on my credit card).

Under what circumstances can she delay it? We have been advised to get pension statements in advance but if she doesn't receive hers back is that something she can use to delay the hearing? Surely if she doesn't have a good reason they won't allow her?

Anyone with any experience please?

We had one during COVID so can't have another. Even if we could ex would cancel it (like she did the interest only option when I requested that).

That's unlikely based on your previous posts, so what are your options in 2 months? When you have run out of credit?

Did she explain why she cancelled the interest only mortgage?

The final financial hearing is in two months so if she doesn't manage to delay it in any way hopefully the judge will make a fair settlement and I can cut the financial ties with her.

Because she doesn't want to have to pay more each month for the mortgage once the interest only period ends. She is planning to buy me out with money lent to her by her family.

So if she does delay it.....?

What's the plan?

That's the reason I raised the question on here in the first place... How easy is it to delay a final financial hearing.

She has no valuable reason to delay it and I'd hope the court would see that. If she can afford to pay the mortgage (and her bank statements will prove that) but isn't paying it, surely the court must order a sale so I can get my equity out and move on myself.

If the court order a sale, the house isn't sold that day, it goes to market, and she can do all sorts of delaying tactics, from not accepting fair market value, making the place unattractive, loads of stuff

You will not be out of this mess in 2 months.

What is your plan?

My DPs ex tried to delay. If I remember correctly his solicitor wrote to the court the reasons why this should not happen and the court agreed with him.

This was after a ridiculous amount of delays from her part. The judge noted her tactics and said that a clean break would have to be reached - she didn't want one.

To OP

My ex dragged out our divorce for 2 years. My solicitor advised that it was common for the partner that's sitting pretty to ignore the courts even if they are the applicant for financial remedy.

Court cost orders were ignored for the wasted on pointless MPS (three of them). Ex used four different solicitors before we ended up at the final hearing.

The Judge agreed that my offers had been more than fair and the courts should never have been involved. My costs over the two years were subtracted from the settlement figure and ex ended up over 35K worse by the time their last solicitor took what they were owed too.

I too suggest you move back in. If mortgage payments are not maintained the house will be repossessed and you may both end up with nothing.

It is natural to be feeling stressed by the situation. It is hard for anyone here though to comment fully with very helpful advice imho as you haven't really said much about whether there are any children, their ages, how long the marriage was for, your respective financial positions, and the amount of equity in the property and any other assets (pensions on both sides). The best strategy and whether court is worth it depends alot on these factors and the amounts involved.

In my understanding, lenders take a long time to repossess nowadays, so it must be worth speaking to your lender. Also, people can delay court stuff a bit, but won't get away with it forever.

My friends parents divorce (and settlement) took more than 10 years, the bill was in the 10s of thousands, all on the mother as she "got the house"