Decree absolute before financial settlement?

[ItsInTheSpoon]

Can anyone tell me what the legal consequences (if any) are, if the decree absolute is obtained before the financial settlement is agreed? Pros, cons?

• if you remarry before getting a financial settlement you may lose some or all of your rights to claim from your ex spouse

• if your spouse dies unexpectedly before the decree absolute you get all the benefits of being their widow/widower. If you get the decree absolute before completing the financial settlement you lose that protection so may end up much worse off than if you had waited

• some assets can only be transferred between spouses (e.g. some trust funds, some pension funds) so getting the decree absolute before the financial settlement could complicate matters

• in some circumstances there may be tax to pay on assets transferred between the ex spouses following the decree absolute which could be avoided if the finances were sorted out while they were still legally married.

In some scenarios it may not matter if you get the decree absolute first but solicitors generally advise getting the finances sorted first.

Thank you, plenty to think about there!

And those good reasons are why most people do the financial settlement first (we did it that way round on our divorce)