Rights to financial privacy in divorce...just another way to f@** women over?

[PosieParker]

No link, news just in(I think) that you will no longer be able to show your exes financial info that you have obtained by deception. So all those slippery twunts that want to leave their wives, mainly, destitute can.....nice!

There's a report here Given the amount of MNers who have to do this in order to get any form of vaguely fair maintenance, and the number of men who deliberately conceal and fudge their financial declarations, yes it does seem designed to punish women.

I cannot imagine that someone that conceals their 'fortune' has the upper hand in our justice system.

Think this is it :

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10799640

I do hope they take this to the Lords. Ridiculous that the law courts should protect people who lie about how much money they have in order to evade their legal responsibilities.

I thought this was the case already. Evidence obtained by unlawful means can't be used surely?

Not that I agree with it at all BTW.

Pennies, family courts had some exceptions known as the "Hildebrand Rules" that they took as meaning that they could allow illegally obtained evidence into a divorce case and that the divorce was a defence for breaking the law.

Now while I agree that some people might loose out I think that the right thing has happened here. The law cannot sanction illegal activities, which is what it had been doing.

Oh and far from being a defence for women the rules came into existence following a court case in which Mr Hildebrand obtained documents detailing the financial assets that *Mrs& Hildebrand was hiding and the judge in the divorce allowed them to be admitted.

Badgers - doesn't alter the fact that in the vast majority of cases the man has more money than the women hence it is more often the man who is hiding his assets.

How can a divorce court achieve a fair division of assets if parties are allowed to evade the law? If one party is being dishonest, how is the other to prove this if they aren't allowed to go and look? Divorce lawyers will now be telling the wealthiest person in a marriage 'go and hide your money, s/he'll never know and even if she suspects s/he's not allowed to check'. Ridiculous.

Neither party is now allowed to evade or break the law and will be punished if they are found out to be doing so.

One party breaking the law does not justify the other doing the same.

I saw someone suggest that if a party is ever found to have hidden any assets then the total value of those assets must be surrendered to the ex-spouse regardless of their value. That actually seems pretty fair to me.

"How can a divorce court achieve a fair division of assets if parties are allowed to evade the law?"

But how can they retain their credibility if they allow one party to break the law to gain an advantage?

"I saw someone suggest that if a party is ever found to have hidden any assets then the total value of those assets must be surrendered to the ex-spouse regardless of their value. That actually seems pretty fair to me."

It's an interesting suggestion but then what of cases where the partner attempts to uncover hidden assets only to find the partner has been full open. Should they have to surrender their share of all the assets which had been legitimately provided as they tried to improve their lot by deception?

• sorry not to gain an advantage as I realise they are only uncovering what should have been presented to the courts. I meant "to their advantage..."

But the thing is, this court of appeal ruling protects people who hide their assets - indeed, encourages people to hide their assets. So it's encouraging one party to deceive the courts. The previous ruling at last meant that if you did try to hide your assets, there was a risk you'd be found out. Now what?

"But the thing is, this court of appeal ruling protects people who hide their assets"

No, this court of appeal ruling strips protection those who break the law.

"So it's encouraging one party to deceive the courts."

No, it's stopping encouraging one party to break the law.

"The previous ruling at last meant that if you did try to hide your assets, there was a risk you'd be found out. Now what?"

Well you can still use legal means to try and uncover what's going on, what's changed is that you can break to law to do so.

Yes people hiding their assets is awful and I'm all for them being made to suffer the full weight of the law if they try to lie to the courts.

However I just can't approve of giving people carte blanche to break the law while allowing them the defence that they were trying to find out if their partner was hiding any assets.

It's like the presumption of innocence, it does allow the guilty to sometimes get away but it's better than the alternative.

As I understand it, it was using information that was NOT obtained illegally, eg letters lying around the house and in the bin. Info obtained illegally, eg opening letters in the spouses name were not admissable.

A top lawyer has described this ruling as a cheats charter and I tend to agree.

It seems to me that there is very little penalty for anyone that hides their assets during a divorce case.

I wonder though how far these rules will go though. A wife who photocopies her husbands banks statement from the filing cabinet in their house will not fall foul of this rule.

A wife who hires a private investigator to break into his computer at his place of work would be stopped.

"As I understand it, it was using information that was NOT obtained illegally"

No, the information that judges used to rule as allowable under the Hildebrand rules was that that was obtained illegally but without the use of force (and possibly also without the use of interception).

Information that was not obtained illegally, i.e. it was obtained legally, was and remains perfectly fine.

In this case the brothers of the wife in the trial stole files from the husbands computer.

The court ruling was that: "Nothing in the so-called Hildebrand rules can be relied upon in justification of, or as providing a defence to, conduct which would otherwise be criminal or actionable,"

So it is clearly all about criminal or actionable conduct that the courts used to turn a blind eye to.

The Hildebrand rules were very complex and it seems that you needed a good solicitor to try and get away with breaking the law. So the main people who used it seems to have been the wealthy who could afford that sort of legal advice. There appears to have been some reluctance by many solicitors to even get involved with trying for a Hildebrand defence of illegal activity as if it goes wrong they could end up in all sorts of trouble too.

Lst us not be sexist and indeed the judges start by saying these days it is often women paying out to men (as I did).

In my view the brothers have won because the brother in law's lawyer is now holding the material and he will check that his own client discloses all he must disclose and the ex wife now knows what she has seen. Despite the adverse decision I think the brothers probably have no practice won although I understand the couple both on a second marriage had a pre nup anyway to which the court may have regard.
Read the case - it's huge fun and got really interesting bits in it about confidentaility in marriage and rights of husbands and wives etc www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2010/908.html

The husband was apparently having an affair with his ex wife.

This is horrible...once the information is out there it should be used...it can't be 'un-known' and is a matter of fact.

If the person concealing the info chooses to press charges against the person who illegally obtained it, then let them do so, and allow them their day in court as well...the judge or magistrate can thn determine the appropriate punishment...a small fine or warning would probably fit the crime!

All the court is saying is get a court search order without notice to the husband or wife rather than break the law to get the stuff. Famly law and lawyers have allowed illegal obtaining of stuff for a long time so it will perhaps alter some things but in practice it may still be worth getting what you can as most spouses won't sue. Once you've found out about the 3 chalets in the alps you can do property searches to find out who owns them and present that etc etc...

Never know why any husbands or wives though don't know about the other half. Some people are very silly in not knowing what that family assets and income are.

Here they didn't say information all back to true owner. They said it goes to his lawyer so when he says my assets are XYZ his lawyer can check and if he has left out 99% of them because the illegally oibtained material suggests he has the other 99% then they will pull him up on that so I'm not so sure the brothers/ex wife did in practice lose here.

"This is horrible...once the information is out there it should be used...it can't be 'un-known' and is a matter of fact."

That's the way that the courts normally operate. Illegally obtained evidence can be, and often is, ruled as being inadmissible.

The Family Law Courts were allowing such evidence as a strange and complicated exception. That door has now been closed and they must operate as other courts operate and apply the law evenly to all parties.

Not allowing evidence that has been illegally maintained is one of the key principles that keep those involved in legal practices behaving themselves.

If the police have to follow rules about the gathering of evidence in serious criminal trials then well paid lawyers shouldn't be allowed to dodge the law in a divorce case.

But as I say in practice once you've unearthed something you can then find other evidence of it by other means and the court does say it depends on the marriage. In some each gives total disclosure to the other (we did in our marriage always) and the case mentions in some marriages bank statements owul dbe opened and left for the other to see. In others they choose to hide information from each other during the marriage in which case it remains confidential.

"This is horrible...once the information is out there it should be used...it can't be 'un-known' and is a matter of fact.
"

that's an awful precedent to set.
What about confessions obtained by force which are factually correct. They are a matter of fact and can't be unknown should they be admissable?
How about evidence in criminal trials obtained without the correct search warrants? once again a matter of fact which can't be unknown yet very few would argue they should be admissable

But illegally obtained criminal evidence, am thinking of intercept evidence, isn't automatically inadmissible, so it would make more sense to decide on a case by case basis.

Obviously opening a letter addressed to former spouse that arrived at the marital home is a bit different than breaking into a computer, for instance.

I would like to see penalties actually being enforced/prosecuted for non disclosure and perhaps a reverse burden of proof, such as having to explain assets.

It could have gone either way. They entered their own computers which their BIL whom out of the goodness of the brothers' hearts they were letting use their computer systems free after he had said your sister will never know the extent of my wealth. The husband should have lost for his own stupidity but actually I think the brothers haven't exactly lost as the information is now with the BIL's lawyer so will not in that sense be unknown.

Anyway was very impractical. Who is going in a divorce case to get a search order in order to get stuff from their spouse? It's just not cost effective unless there is a lot of money at stake. The moral is never marry someone who hides their finances from you and always know 100% about those finances.