Financial consent order after divorce

[Vickcoos]

My DP has been been divorced for 2 years but seperated for 6 years. When he seperated from his ex wife, it was a mutual decision and they decided to forgo solicitors to save money. His ex wife changed her mind about solicitors once DP moved out and had a separation deed drawn up that gave her a much larger share of assets. DP didn't seek legal advice, but refused to sign the separation deed. The ex used threats, mostly regarding not seeing their 3 children (2 of the children were over 18 so this seems crazy to me) and even dp's youngest child, who would've been 4 or 5 at the time asked him to sign the paper work for mummy. Eventually after many threats and abuse he signed it under duress.

Fast forward to now and child arrangements for the youngest son are complete. (It took that long) so now DP wants to get a financial order to have the assets from the (20 + year) marriage shared equally and have an equalisation of pensions.

What is the next step?

See a solicitor.

DP was hoping to avoid using solicitors. He's spent 1000's on solicitors in the past couple of years getting the child arrangement order.

He can't do it without legal advice.

Depending on the separation deed, that may already contain the provisions of the consent order which would need some dramatic change of circumstances to void.

However, if one party didn't receive any independent advice then validity in relation to the consent order prob won't be valid.

Unfortunately on consent orders, spending thousands is inevitable unless both parties can reach agreement, and one which a judge would view as reasonable

My dp didn't receive any independent advice regarding the separation deed.

2 months after the decree absolute. (So a number of years after the separation deed) Ex wife's solicitor sent a form for him to sign indicating they advised him to take independent legal advice and he did not want to take it. DP refused to sign it.

Just as a side note, the separation deed also states that after 2 years separation they would start divorce proceedings and they would share the cost of the divorce. After 2 years however ex wife refuted this and insisted dp pay for the divorce in full. (Once again using not seeing child as 'consequence' of not doing so) Dp eventually received a number of invoices from ex wife solicitor amounting to over £2000 for the cost of the divorce. Which dp paid. So would ex wife be in breach of contract for the separation deed she set up?

I think in reality, none of this has huge legal validity. It sounds like he will have to seek legal advice and be prepared that unpicking all of this years after a divorce isn't going to be easy, but the fact remains that there is no consent order, so his ex wife is as entitled as he is to ask for an order. So if he or she inherited money, that could add to the issue.

How much is he likely to gain from this? Probably difficult to quantify without advice, but he needs to offset it against solicitors charging £350plus vat oer hour. Even so, he still needs to get a consent order to finalise the arrangements.

He shouldn't really have got divorced without one. My friends divorce just sat there waiting until the judge are proved the order (was messy)

I didn't even know you could get divorced without one to be honest.

My dp just paid for the divorce and signed the divorce paper work, ex wife did the rest. Perhaps she wanted to keep finances as they were which is approximately a 25/75 share. That would be why she tried to get dp to sign saying he didn't want independent advice to make the separation deed more concrete.

As far as assets they have now, dp owned a 1 bed flat which he sold when we decided to move in together. He has 50k put aside from the sale of his property. We now rent. Ex wife has a 5 bed property worth 500k +

This is not something he should embark on without legal advice. He at the least needs an initial appointment with a lawyer who is experienced in financial matters on divorce.
A separation deed may be upheld if it was fair, both parties have had legal advice and that they had financial disclosure. However if he had the opportunity to have legal advice then this may make it more likely to be upheld. It is also not a binary decision, the existence of the separation deed may influence a final outcome but not be entirely followed.

It is unlikely to be the case that breach of one stand alone term (the divorce costs) invalidates the whole of the agreement.
Get good legal advice to understand his options and the process and likely outcomes and specifically ask about next steps if he acts in person.