Divorced as of last night: no financial order

[Itsnotmyjobtoeducatestupid]

As the title says:
My lawyer says nothings changed and it’s full steam ahead!
what would you guys do in my situation?

sahm mum 4 kids main carer to my youngest disabled. Former husband lives an hour away with new partner and sees the children once a month for a few hrs.

cms - done
interim spousal maintenance while I try and find school hour work as child care outside school hours expensive
marital home no mortgage he wants 35% when youngest is 18
London flat no mortgage we lived in with our eldest.

He wants to exclude this from the settlement.

His pension is 10x mine and wants to exclude it
joint savings of 6 figures he wants to exclude it.
We’ve sent in forensic accountants as monies have gone ‘missing’ His basic salary’s was halved just after he filled for divorce and now has suddenly bounced back to 6 figures.

he cheated and left me - background info as he’s done me a favour.
my elder two are both autistic daughter self harmed and is under camhs and son is under mental health team for support after what happened at home and his dad leaving.

my lawyer is brilliant - expensive and I’m using all my savings and monies I had from when I did work as a teacher to pay for everything.

my late mums probate is £50k for me and my sister he wants me to include it

His argument is despite a 19 year marriage he bought the wealth into the marriage.

We've done mediation which even the mediator signed the court MIAM form and said I needed to speak to my lawyers.

his argument for the settlement is 34% to me 66% to him.
he owes me for a family car which he sold - sister leant the money to me to buy one as youngest is in a special adapted car seat
cooker that is still not working and he promised he’d pay.

i paid out for the replacement garage door as it was unsafe and he hasn’t reimbursed me.

We are going in with our offer!
I just am so fucked off that he can be so angry at me for as he said in his words/ ‘you’ve gone and got yourself a high end law firm.’

his job : think city and a very serious senior position.

sorry I don’t know what I’m asking just venting I suppose 🙉

Well he’s rather deluded.

none of the things he says he wants excluded will be. They will all be included.

with a long marriage and 4 children some with sen, presumably he’s on high salary you will end up with more than 50% of assets inc flat, pension, house, savings, everything. Possibly longer term
spousal maintenance unless that is capitalised now meaning your share of assets goes up even further, and child maintenance

it does not matter he brought the wealth. In the eyes of the law your roles in the marriage are deemed equal and as your needs are greater and you’re ability to recover financially are more restricted you’ll receive ( in my view) greater than 50% of all assets

What is your solicitor doing and suggesting ?

Go for everything you can be cutthroat about it.

Oh thank you I feel like a nightmare of financial squeezing never mind his bonus’s etc. just doing the best that I can for the children. Solicitor said she’d want to avoid court for costs but mediation has to be done so that the courts can see evidence. As I e been unwell recently she’s only not rushing anything as he’s been trying to push through before the new financial year. She signposted a barrister for counsel and also pension sharing order as well as claiming household expenses back as he shut access to the joint account thankfully I always kept my own account/ money and small income from titling and writing.
trying to make sure bupa isn’t cancelled as I have ongoing treatment - thank you it means so. much that you’ve taken the time out!
currently emailing doctor rather than communicating with lawyer as he’s disputing paying for hot lunches for the older two as when he was here they had packed lunch- my argument is because our youngest s disability is linked to his throat and lungs it’s easier for me to have the older two having a hot lunches then making stuff the night before for morning as it takes the pressure of me with feeding and also administering the youngest liquid thickener etc.

solicitor is prepping the notes for court and the legal team- in house accounts looking at discrepancies -
🙉🙉🙉

He is angry because he knows he will have to agree to a much more favourable (for you) settlement.
Sod him.

I'm very surprised that your lawyer allowed you to get a decree absolute before settling finances. Regardless, he can't "exclude" things. All assets, including your inheritance, go into the marital pot for division. You are likely to get the higher settlement in your circumstances. Absolutely go for the jugular. This is yours and your children's future security!

The only relevance a final order has is a consequence of pension sharing if one of you dies before matters are resolved.

I am a lawyer (not in family law) and spoke to over 20 family law judges about why it is said you must never get a final order before financial order.. the only reason anyone could give is that if your ex dies you won't have pension rights.

For me, being legally free of the idiot was worth do much more than the off chance he died before we resolved it.

As for OP. He is delusional If he thinks all those things won't be included. Good luck to you.

I'd suspect the idea of no absolute before financial settlement is about bargaining power. If he wants to move on remarry etc then he is more compelled to sort the financial order to get the divorce done. Until that order is made their finances are still comingled and a continuing issue.

Yes this. How do you have a decree absolute without a financial order?

Because there is no requirement to have a financial order before final order. Lawyers always advise to get the financial order before final order but there's no brilliantly good reason to do it that way round except for a risk that if the ex dies before settlement you won't be entitled to any surviving spouse pension.

I looked into it a LOT because I wanted to be divorced and was suspicious that no lawyer could offer a clear reason why it HAD to be that way round. (I'm also a lawyer but not in family law).

But what's his incentive now to agree a financial order? If I was him I would just drag it out for years.

The incentive is that it remains unresolved so all his ongoing financial interests remain part of the "pot".

If someone is going to be difficult about proceedings they'll do that with or without a final order and for as long as you remain married that person has all sorts of rights over you such as if you were seriously ill or died.

I wanted to make very sure my ex husband didn't get the say on switching off my life support in the event of tragedy as soon as possible!

We have the pension sharing order and my lawyer said nothing changes re the finances but they’d asked him not to apply for it but he did. It doesn’t make sense all I can think it’s another way of controlling the finances because he knows I don’t have money but I am paying the fees from my smallish income - also there is a discrepancy of a lot of money between submitting his form E and then what he declared at mediation so a lot is going on

I feel free that I am not tied to him but scared that suddenly all the work benefits and private health that I was covered for is not going to be covered. I had a major health scare a few years back and needed the bupa to help with my physio - and he knows how important it’s been- the NHS has been wonderful but even they said to use it- the private physio helped me learn to walk again after being paralysed he’s cruel that’s all I can say!

I guess I was just thinking he’ll want to sort the financial order out he’s due bonuses in the financial year but also he’d not want me to go after any inheritance he gets even though he’s going after my mothers I mean who knows 🙉🤦🏽‍♀️

How can you have a pso without agreeing the rest? That makes no sense and the pension award will at least in part depend
on the outcome of sharing on the other assets

The pension sharing order has been completed with a minimum of 50% split

Congratulations on getting divorced but I do question your solicitor's ability. They could have applied to court to stop the absolute being granted before the the financials have been resolved. In fact even you could have applied to get it delayed.

Good luck on getting at least 50%, and hopefully your inheritance isn't counted in the marital assets - sometimes it isn't but it depends on whether both sides can be adequately housed from the other assets.

That doesn’t make sense either - the pso will state a specific amount not ‘a minimum of’

and that won’t get agreed until the consent order is done.

sonething isn’t adding up

I agree.

Thank you - sorry I meant the minimum is stated in amount being offered which equates to 50% I just said the percentage - which is a relief since he didn’t want me to have any of it

Ok
so you’re offer is 50% of pension

what does the rest of your offer contain? ( you don’t need to share here obvs)

the key thing is until you have a court signed final consent order nothing is agreed, resolved or sorted. So you don’t actually have a pso