Financial claim post divorce/ clean break

[LegalPanic]

I got married very young in my early 20s. It didn't work out, we separated after less than one year. Neither of us had any assets, no children, no house, no money. Minimum wage jobs.

For a while my ex refused the divorce for various reasons, but then it finally came through. We did the divorce ourselves, and I was just so relieved to have it, I didn't think of anything else.

15 years later and I've got a much better paid job, I've been saving a lot in my pension, and I've recently bought a house. But I've recently been reading here that an ex could make a claim in the future if he didn't marry since.

How could I check whether we had a clean break, or some kind of financial order? Where would this be on any paperwork?

Also, is this something I need to seriously worry about? For example, should I try to do some digging to see if he remarried? (Not sure how I would do this as we have no joint friends and I don't believe he is on social media). I plan to save a lot more over the coming years, and don't want him to pop up in the future making a claim against me.

Probably need someone better to advise as never been married but if you have a decree absolute it should be done and dusted

That's false. The divorce consists of three separate parts. Marriage, Financials and Children. Not everyone has the children to legally sort but they do need to sort out and finish off the other two.

OP - You should have the Decree Absolute, I assume any other divorce paperwork would be with it. Otherwise contact the court that issued your Absolute. And yes, you should be worried.

You will need to dig out your divorce paperwork. Yes you do need a clean break in the financial order.

Thanks for your replies. I have checked the paperwork, in the form that specifies the details of the divorce, there are no boxes ticked in the "financial order" part (but there was also no "clean break" option, it just called out different kinds of support). Also, in the Absolute it mentions there are no children, but doesn't mention anything about finances or a clean break. I don't have any separate paperwork. This isn't looking good.

OP, no judge in the land is going to grant him a share of your earnings 15 years later, after a short marriage. That's not the spirit of the law at all.

A clean break is just a type of financial order. It sounds like you don't have a financial order. If he hasn't remarried, he could still make a claim against you. Similarly, if you haven't remarried, you could make a claim against him. See, for example, Vince v Wyatt. They separated after only a couple of years of marriage and divorced a few years later. They didn't get a financial order as they only had limited assets. He went on to make a fortune through starting a business. Over 20 years after the divorce she took legal action to try and get a slice of his wealth, which at the time stood at over £50M. The courts decided she was entitled to a slice, albeit nowhere near as much as she wanted. She eventually received £300k.

Thank you for your reply. This is what I read initially, which got me worried. I've been in contact with a couple of solicitors today to get a free consultation. I will see what they say - feels like I'm going to be spending money on this regardless 😪

One thing I don't know, is there a way to check whether someone is married? It doesn't look like I can search marriage records in the same way as births/deaths if I don't know any details (obviously I have his name and DOB, but I don't know what parish any marriage would have happened in or the name of a potential spouse).

He was always very secretive and we don't have any joint friends. He has no social media, although I've found him on LinkedIn - and he has been active relatively recently - So I know how to contact him if I need to.

I only want to talk to him if I absolutely must, as I have no idea whether he would be reasonable about this or not 😪

They had a child by the way (Vince Wyatt) so it's not quite the same case as yours.

Ideally yes you'd have a financial order closing it all off. But remember he'd have to know that you have this extra money. He would have to employ solictors to pursue you. She got 300k of the reported 57million. So assuming you have a smaller amount then that! He'd not necessarily get very much and will have a fair amount of costs.

I would not worry overly IMHO