Divorce advice please

[ThisCoralExpert]

Hi all, I’m looking for some advice/experiences around divorce finances as I’m feeling a bit stuck.Been married for 13 years, no kids together. Leaving because he has cheated a lot in the past then emotional abuse to the point where I have extreme anxiety and sometimes left arm numbness from stress.

We jointly own our family home, and we also have two other properties between us. We have two children living with me (17-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter), and he has a 16-year-old son.

I’m considering asking for around 70% of the equity in the main home plus one of the other properties (the one with higher equity), with the idea that we then don’t touch his pension at all to keep things simpler- his pension is higher than mine.

For context, I run my own business but it has quite a bit of debt (including HMRC), and I also have more personal debt than him. He also has his own business but is in a stronger financial position overall.

A few questions I’d really appreciate help with:

• Does what I’m proposing sound remotely realistic/fair in a UK divorce?
• What actually happens next once the waiting period ends? (Ours ends on 16 May)
• What’s the correct order of steps for sorting the financial side?
• If he just doesn’t respond or refuses to engage, what happens?
• Can the court force him to provide financial information or move things forward?
• Has anyone here gone through this without lawyers and represented themselves?

I’m trying to keep costs down so planning to do this myself if possible, but I also don’t want to make mistakes.

Any advice or experiences would be really appreciated. Thank you.

• I can’t tell if what you’re proposing Is fair, because 70% of the equity could be virtually nothing, and you may have huge amounts of debt, and he may have an absolutely enormous pension. But broadly there would be a 50-50 asset split. Your debts also go into that pot and so does his pension. You can only put forward your proposal and see if he likes it and then you will know whether he sees it as fair or not.
• You haven’t said what’s happening with the children. Are you both going to be sharing them still? If you are, then both parents need to be able to house three children.
• If he refuses to engage, you will be looking at a protracted and drawn out process potentially including trial at the end (adds on c18mths). You should both avoid this at all costs
• I self represented in various elements because my ex did exactly that, refused to engage and I just couldn’t afford to involve lawyers with everything anymore. I would never have done this earlier.

Can the courts force him to produce information? Yes, they say they can, but in reality if someone is stubborn and difficult and unforthcoming they can really play the system. Collect as many documents as you can (take a day off work to photocopy everything if you need to), that you can then add into bundles with the note ‘I found his pension statement amongst my own admin’

It’s impossible to say as we don’t know

the values of properties
equity /debt/pensions valuations
incomes /earnings
ore marital assets brought to the marriage

might be reasonable or might be totally unreasonable

courts can force financial disclosure but this can be timely , costly and also if this are missed or excluded often there’s no ‘penalty’ or recourse

Too many variables but personal debt is not normally included in such things.

What is equity in all houses, when did you get them etc...

On the face of it, sounds a little unfair - you want house with higher equity AND 70% of main house?

Thank you all. Main house equity is 244k. The other two houses equity is 20k each. Reason for asking for higher equity is because I won’t ask for his pension or any of his other assets (these are not in the uk).

Also I will need a 3 bed due to having 2 kids of opposite gender and he will need a 2 bedroom house for him and my stepson

A 3 bdr is a want not a need. A living room sofa bed is considered suitable use of space.

your kids aren’t his so he has no obligation to ensure their future - that’s your job - which doesn’t seem to be going to well since you have loads of debt and a poorly performing business

how much is his pension worth and how much is yours? Presumably you have one? Not like you gave up work to have his children so personally I think what you are proposing is grabby and if I were him I’d certainly be fighting your proposal in court

If his pension equals the extra equity you’re talking about it could be reasonable

However, he could argue to exclude the pension accumulated before you were in a relationship.

as others said you don’t have those housing need from the marriage- housing the children isn’t the marriages concern

if he doesn’t engage you will have to use the court to enforce at each stage. You can represent yourself.

the court won’t accept “I found his pension statements” but good idea to have them so you know if he lies

There’s no obligation on him to house your children or you his,

and pensions are not liquid assets and will be discounted in value to due time value for money so you’d need to look at that too

again without understanding the total
assets and values involved no one here can say