Financial order 5 years after end of marital period when financial position of one party has changed significantly

[Alljan]

I wanted to see if anyone had experience of agreeing a financial order a significant period of time after separating. We separated and I moved out in Feb 2021.

I have been trying to sort finances out with my ex for nearly 5 years now. I’ve taken a softly softly approach to the timeline as we are both in healthy financial positions and our old marital home is sold (he’s in military accommodation and I have bought a new place) for the best of the co-parenting situation. Form Es were exchanged at the start of 2025 but he has made zero progress since then. I pushed the actual divorce through earlier this year.

The complicating factor is that I have had a big jump in pay since separation. I was promoted around a year afterwards and have received bonuses and equity equivalent to the entire marital pot in that time. I don’t wish for him to have any of this as it’s nothing to do with him. His needs for housing will be met with a 55% share to him from the calculation of the marital pot using a very conservative estimate of his pension value. I worked part time and then full time once our children were born. He had always been full time. We have 50:50 care of them.

i am hoping to use a private FDR when he gets on with it but he is finding his pension complicated and hates paying legal fees!

If anyone has dealt with something similar, would love to know what happened

We separated in 2020 and finally divorced at the end of last year.
If you are amicable and agree a lot between yourselves, you get a lot more leeway in what the agreed splits are, although it sounds like you are not able to do this.
My Ex wanted more than originally offered and pursued it via her solicitor ... our original form E, completed at the start of 2024 was deemed too old at the start of 2025 and had to be redone with the most up to date values and a PODE was required and the one we used would only work with pension CETV's no older than 6 months ... so in answer to your query, by delaying my Divorce and financial agreement for 5 years, my Ex gained a share of my pension contributions and savings I had put away since we separated.
Your solicitor may have more luck arguing that the Divorce should permit you to ring fence your additional savings, but the legal system is so varied it could go either way if he does finally get legal advice and his solicitor wants it included.
Additionally, if your new savings were put into a seperate account from the start and never mixed with funds that are up for sharing, they still need to be declared on the form E, but it will help your solicitor to put up a better argument to ring fence the savings.

You really need to try to reach agreement between you.

if it goes to court your position now could impact awards and your needs to marital assets are reduced. Courts can and do look at positions at separation and the assets at that time but until you’re divorced and financially severed either party can claim on the other’s assets - there are cases where that has been successful.

whys he stalling ?

And there should be a proper military pensions expert involved - unlikely he can just deal with that to value it fairly

Would you not be able to offer to forgo any claim on his pension in order to get things pushed through and limit the likelihood he’ll claim against your new salary?

obviously only if you’ll be able to make up any difference in pension with your new salary!

Thanks all - I really want to reach agreement between us and am still hopeful of this but increasingly frustrated by the passage of time it’s taken. I can’t invest any money or even get financial advice currently.

I don’t intend to claim any of his pension but will need him to get the valuation (via an expert) in order to see the value that has for him.

I can clearly document the bonuses and equity awards and separate them from the general pot of money. My salary is around 2.5x his so he’s going to get the benefit of that for 5 extra years based on up to date Form E.

He is stalling because he’s always been a massive procrastinator, he’s been busy at work and because he hates paying his lawyers! I’m planning to take a career break next year so maybe that will teach him when I don’t have a salary!

Do you have any children and if so, what are their ages

Yes 2 kids : 12 and 10. 50/50 co-parenting arrangement

He's probably deliberately stalling then. The closer the kids are to the age of 18, the more likely the financial split will be 50/50, regardless of when the funds were accumulated.

The OP earns more, she is the stronger party and likely to get less than 50% in order for them to be made equal. It is income which informs whether a weaker party needs a bigger share of assets not their co parenting. A parent who has the children 3 days a week needs the same house as someone who has them 4 nights a week. The weaker party needs more capital to achieve that.

I have a military pension. You download the form, fill it in, select the valuation requirement for Divorce, sign it and send it off to veterans UK. Do a bank transfer to pay the fee (£180) and wait about 8 weeks for the Pension valuation to be sent back (He can search on Google for Veterans UK, AFPS form 19)