Divorce: Would he had a claim to my house/savings/pensions?

[roxyjane]

In a nutshell, I foolishly married someone I hadn't known well enough. It was a whirlwind holiday romance type scenario. Brought him over to the UK on a visa. Couple of years and a baby later, I revoked the sponsorship. Domestic violence. Court case involved, he was convicted and subsequently removed from the UK by the authorities.
Fast forward to now (6 years later), I want to divorce him. Haven't done it sooner for various reasons. We don't have any sort of contact at all. He was never interested in our baby (even when living with us in the UK). The baby wasn't the gender that he and his family wanted. He would rant about how wrong it was that he should have to pay for nappies or formula milk and generally refused to step up as a parent. Thankfully I was in a well paid job and had substantial savings, as well a supportive network of people to help if necessary.
During the divorce or as part of the process, would he need to be informed of my financial assets and the home I own? He was never involved and paid for nothing. Didn't even buy me so much as flowers on my birthdays when we were together.
Also, could he lay claim to any custody of our shared child? Child has no memory of him as we left when child was a young baby.
Husband is from a country without any kind of treaty in place, so in the event that he or his family carry out previous threats to abduct our child to their country, then I'd have no chance of getting child back.
I have no current contact details for my estranged husband, although rumour has it that he has re-married in his native country to a local lady from his town. We are already considered as divorced under Islamic law (Muslim country governed by sharia law) so, from his POV, he IS divorced. However, being from the UK, I'm mindful of the need to divorce him under UK law. I have a current partner and don't like the idea of still being "legally tied" to the ex. No plans to re-marry, but I just want to be free of him and get call my financial affairs and estate in order if that makes sense.

Yes, there will need to be full financial disclosure by both you and him. That doesn't necessarily mean he will be entitled to any of your house, savings or pensions. You need to get advice from a solicitor. When they are in possession of all the facts, they will be able to advise on the likely outcome.

If he is not in your child's life at all, there is no way he will be able to get an order that your child should live with him. He may be entitled to contact, but that is all. Depending on the details of the case, including what evidence you have of the threats, he may only get indirect or supervised contact.

I mean... if he isn't in the country maybe the solicitors letters conveniently go to the wrong address and the divorce just goes through?

I'd talk to a solicitor. It may be the marriage was short enough and his total lack of contribution / involvement with your child means he's not entitled to anything. The fact he has remarried might help.

If the solicitor says he may have rights, I'd leave it until your child is 13 and her wishes will have priority.

Sending divorce papers to the wrong address will just prolong the process and leave OP vulnerable to claims from her ex in future.

Waiting until the child is 13 may help with a CAO but, if OP and her ex have already been living separate lives for a while, it is unlikely to help with the financial order.

Yes, OP needs to talk to a solicitor.

It was a short marriage and you can point to the sharia aspect to support this even though on paper it's longer. This limits the amount of financial division in play. You are also sole carer for the DC which also means you'll be able to argue you keep family.home etc.
In theory you do have to disclose everything and so does he. In reality as long as it's plausible that's fine. I know for a fact that my ex withheld financial information on his form because he didn't declare some pretty hefty savings I know he had and I didn't (on discussion with my solicitor) declare some employee share scheme shares on the grounds they were unvested and thus not guaranteed. He probably knew I had these. The point being neither of us challenged the other's disclosure and came to a financial agreement without these in the mix and this was rubber stamped by judge. So you may just be better off paying him something so that he goes away ie if it looks like you're sharing and you declare the main items eg house etc. Then that's probably fine.

The challenge may be that you can't get hold of him to serve papers.

It was a short marriage

OP hasn't told us how long the marriage actually lasted, so we don't know if it was a short marriage. The OP suggests it is now 8 years since they married. If the marriage lasted more than 5 years, the courts will not regard it as a short marriage.

In reality as long as it's plausible that's fine

Very bad advice. If OP fails to make a full disclosure and her ex finds out, he can ask the courts to overturn the financial order and give him more.

@prh47bridge

The Op said' a couple of years later' so 2 years married.

You only need to supply financial disclosure if he applies for financial remedy. I don’t see why you would issue an application.

Yes you have to disclose financial assets and agree child custody arrangements when you divorce. I'm really really surprised that you didn't know this.

Contact solicitor who specialises in tjis. If your divorce went through proper procedure ehere you got married, it may be recognised in UK as well.

If you have no contact information for him then you can divorce him in absentia OP. Get legal advice from someone with experience in international divorce.

Whatever you do, make a will tomorrow (assuming you haven't done that already). Literally even a WHS DIY form job leaving everything to your child signed by the postman and a school run mum to carry you over until you can see a solicitor and do something more in depth. Add a letter saying something like "I have not had contact with my legal husband X since 202X and we have been divorced under Islamic law since 202Y. I have not been financially supporting him in any way and I not want him to receive anything from my estate"

If you were run over by a bus tomorrow with no will, he could swoop in and take hundreds of thousands of pounds away from your child.

I just want to say well done forgetting rid of him op.
He sounds like a fuckwit-sh¹t4brains type so that at least gives you a big advantage over him.

See a solicitor but I expect you will be ok.

I had a similar situation although he's from the uk. Married 15 months. Split and I tried to divorce him. Because I had the house before we were married and had been financially supporting him I was told I would win the house but the cost of fighting him was prohibitive with legal fees. I left it a few years until he found himself a new victim with a house so now he wants a divorce and isn't fighting for mine.

Basically you should keep your assists but the legal fees if he fights you may be eye watering.
My hat said I don't know the law just what I was told for my situation

You can have your child’s passport flagged so that you’re notified if anyone tries to take them out of the country. Notify nursery/school that you will always collect and people who collect in an emergency will have a password so they know that it’s ok to hand child over.

Because he can come back at a later and claim half of everything, which may be a lot more.

Only if he chooses to do so, and even then only if he's not remarried since.

Delay will further reduce any claim he might want to make.

His claim won't be stronger by it being dealt with years later. It will be weaker.

If you dont have an address for him the Court will allow you to serve papers in the form of an advert in an appropriate location etc so its possible that he could end up unaware that you had applied for a divorce and the resultant financial order