Urgent: Divorce Answer to Questionnaire- LIP help please?

[BraveMouse]

I’m LIP, XH is represented.

Main issue is short marriage (less than a year before separation) but long relationship (13 years). There are 2 DC involved, resident with me.

I have to provide a chronology of cohabitation which was not continuous for most of the 13 years. I need some help with answering due to the following:

XH purchased the marital home in 2006 but decided to completely gut it rendering it inhabitable. We lived separately elsewhere during this time. Believing that it was ‘our’ home (I’m not on deeds as was a student at that time and couldn’t go on mortgage) I put money and time into the property. XH moves back in before it was finished due to being turfed out of his temporary arrangement. He wouldn’t let me move in initially (he was cheating I found out later).

In the interim we had 2 DC. I moved in after the second was born. XH was financially abusive and wouldn’t agree immediately to a joint tax credits claim (I was SAHM so no income aside from benefits which I continued to claim). I think after a few months, he finally agreed to a joint claim.

Later, I moved out with his agreement in order to secure a place for our DC at a good school. I claimed as a single parent at this time. Throughout, our relationship continued as normal. Then I returned to the marital property and resumed a joint claim.

His solicitor is asking for proof of the periods of cohabitation (which I am saying counts from 2006 as it was circumstance rather than intention as to our living separately) but I will be incriminating myself by admitting to living together during a single claim.

I understand that cohabitation really matters in my case due to short marriage. What is the best way to answer this question please?

Be truthful but maybe obmit the time you were claiming to be single say you were claiming to be living single in 2009/2010 on benefit claim instead of trying to say you co-habited then which would then incriminate you for fraud.

Yes yes i know it will reduce your claim of the share of the assists but if you are proven to lie (aka committing benifet fraud is lying) it would be easy to prove.

Aka you say you were co-habiting from 2008 but you claimed single benifets (this would count agaisnt you and since you were claiming to be single you have ether committed benifet fraud or two you are lying to the court which is also a criminal offence).

I in good faith cannot advise you to lie to the courts but in my honsert opinion it might be better for you personally not to attempt to claim co-habitation during the time you were claiming single person benefits.

Has a financial application been issued? Is this a question you have been ordered to answer, or just a question in correspondence?

How old are your children?

If you weren't living there just be truthful. You were single at the time and you were entitled to claim. Just put the dates and addresses down. Yours is a complex case with the short marriage but joint children.
His solicitor will argue that you aren't entitled to much but the judge will act on the best interests of all parties concerned.
Just tell the truth.

Thanks for the helpful replies.

My case is very complicated because we divorced 5 years ago but due to negligent legal advice I received at the time (from a solicitor) I didn’t know I had a claim so the finances were not sorted. I literally walked away with nothing on her advice (she told me I had no right to stay in the property). The house in question was purchased from my parents - the only reason we bought it was because it was my childhood home and we were supposed to live there together. They sold it directly to him - it was never marketed for this reason. The children are 9 & 11.

This was a question from his solicitor after exchange of form E. He wanted a timeline of cohabitation with supporting documents from HMRC.

I have been truthful as to the position, I just wasn’t sure how this would affect things.

My other question is can I ask further questions after answers have been exchanged? I requested documents missing from his form e. Most of those documents are still missing but some of the others raise more questions. For example, there are a lot of transfers to an account number which is not listed in the bank accounts he has disclosed. It is clearly one of his accounts because he makes a transaction to empty the account (to make the balance zero) but miscalculated and left a few pence which is then transferred to this account. Coincidently just before Form e was due in court

How and when do I do this please? Offers are due to be exchanged soon but obviously I can’t do this without full disclosure wgich he’s failed to do.

Serve a supplemental questionnaire. If they don’t agree immediately a deadline by which to reply you must apply to court urgently for an order he must reply, and for a retimetabling.