Any advice on financial split?

[TheApplicant]

Good Afternoon,

Me (52 years old) and my husband (51 years old) of 28 years are currently undergoing divorce proceedings and dividing finances with the assitance of the courts. I have a solicitor, however they are not the best with regards to communication. I believe this may be due to my funding coming by way of legal aid, so I assume that they may be getting a lower hourly rate compared to what a private client would pay.

Financial circulstances are as follows:

There are 2 children of the marriage, one aged 13 and the other aged 24. At the last FDR the judge stated that our 24 year old son would be classified as a child due to him being severely autistic (non-verbal, wears an incontinence pad and requires 24/7 care) Both of our children stay with me 7 days a week and father has no contact whatsoever aside from paying child maintenance for the 13 year old.

Due to my autistic sons' condition, I am not in work and reliant on state benefits (PIP for myself due to my anxiety&depression, carers allowance for my son, UC and child maintenance) my husband is a Police Officer (Earning approximately £2,500 monthly after child maintenance deductions) with 25 years service and his pension has been valued at £150,000 (CETV) I have no pension whatsoever.

The Family Home which is on my husbands sole name and was purchased 20 years ago has been valued at £330,000 and is mortgage free.

My husband owns a second property in his sole name which was purchased 24 years ago which has been valued at £300,000, also mortgage free. This property is currently on rent for which he receives £800 per calendar month.

My husband purchased a third property (also in his sole name) after separating from me for £303,000 for which he states there is a £95,000 balance outstanding on the mortgage. He is now cohabiting with his new parter at this property.

In total there is approximately £1,000,000 in assets belonging to my husband. I have approximately £700 to my name.

My husband has also taken advantage of court proceedings and violated numerous court orders with penal noticea attached. He has only started to comply with the orders since the judge ordered that a copy of all previous and future orders be sent directly to the Chief Constable of the force that he is employed with.

I am looking for any advice on potential splits that could be attainable in light of the above information. Thanks in advance.

Doesn't £150k cetv sound low for 25 years of paying into the police pension? It is known as a good one.

Separately, how on earth is it that you are receiving legal aid due to his accepted abuse, yet he is allowed to continue working in the police force? No wonder women aren't safe.

It is a fairly reserved figure as it was provided by the police pension service, who are notorious for providing lower CETV. I intend to instruct a pension actuary to provide a more well informed and balanced valuation. I have heard it can be up to 10-20% more.

With regards to the domestic violence, as i’ve said in an earlier reply - I did not provide a statement as I simply wanted him removed from the home. The Detective Constable who attended to speak to me made court sound like an extremely daunting process, and put me off providing a statement. When my husband returned to collect his belongings with the aforementioned Detective. He pulled the keys from the front door and handed them to my husband and stated this is his house and he is free to return whenever he pleases. Sounds about right hahahah

Good that you have a barrister, perhaps he will show up with one next time.
He is claiming borrowing/loaning money from family to cover his working cash in hand (?)..surely he would need to show a lot of evidence to prove it was a loan from family, bank statements with payments from them, evidence of regular repayments, loan agreement with family member. I can’t see it will stick in terms of impacting your share of assets..keep calm and look after yourself these next few months..hope you have support irl.

He is claiming he owes money to these individuals in order to save his rental property from being included in the split. He has stated on his Form E that he needs to sell that property in order to repay some of his debts. I requested supporting documentation with relation to the loans in my questionnaire to him. Sadly he missed the deadline to reply to my questionnaire due to the coincidental ‘miscarriage’ his new partner suffered. I do have support by way of my eldest child who is 28 and his wife, however I’m worried he is plotting to potentially have them removed from the home as in his questionnaire he raised their terms of occupation in the FMH which belongs to him.

UPDATE: after missing the deadline to return his replies for my questionnaire. My husband made the excuse of his new partner suffering a miscarriage and requested a 2 week extension which expired yesterday (24/04/25)

He has now also missed that deadline and my solicitors have received no correspondence whatsoever. We are now going to submit a C2 form to the courts for further directions.

I am being told that his non-compliance is going to work in my favour but I am extremely apprehensive as I fear he is plotting something and he may be able to manipulate the judge at the next FDR (scheduled for 22nd July 2025)

Can anyone who has knowledge or has been in a similar situation offer any words of advice/encouragement?

All the assets not just the cash could be considered. If you have children you both care for then you're both responsible. If he is instead letting you do all that then he would have to give more to support that.

The fact he owns £1M in USD and is leaving you with nothing is unlikely to be seen very kindly by a judge and I think the judge would rule that you should get more if you are the primary carer of these children and he's playing silly games by not listening to court orders (contempt of court).