HIDING MONEY DURING DIVORCE

Nash1962

I'm going through a nasty divorce and my ex-wife is hiding money from me. Please let me know what I can do about this.

John_

Nash1962 said:

I'm going through a nasty divorce and my ex-wife is hiding money from me. Please let me know what I can do about this.

Tell your solicitor.

Nash1962

Well, I've found that she has two custodial accounts that has £6,000 in it. Even though it's clear that the money is hers, she closed the account and transferred the funds into another account. However, it's impossible to say who that account belongs to. She claims that the account belongs to the person whose money it is. 

Nash1962

Don't have a solicitor. I can't get legal aid because of equity in unsold properties. I could get a loan from equity but this is expensive.

Savvy_Sue

Nash1962 said:

Well, I've found that she has two custodial accounts that has £6,000 in it. Even though it's clear that the money is hers, she closed the account and transferred the funds into another account. However, it's impossible to say who that account belongs to. She claims that the account belongs to the person whose money it is. 

I can't make sense of this. What is a custodial account? If you mean it's someone else's money that your wife was looking after for some reason, and she has now transferred the money back to that person, then it's not hers, is it? 

If you have copies of statements of historic bank accounts (not too historic!) then that's evidence which can be used to ask where the money has gone. And yes, it can be expensive to use a solicitor, but it may be more expensive not to do so. 

Nash1962

My ex-partner has had over two years to hide the money. She applied for divorce in 2018. Form E, which deals with assets, only asks for one years finance information. In 2018, she had well over £200,000 in savings. Now, that money has just disappeared. I have a telephone conference meeting with family court soon. Can I request that she provides financial information to cover the time she had the money?

Nash1962

Hi savvy sue, Both of us were foster carers. Part of the rules are that we open up an account for the child being looked after. At the time, the council required that we put in £8.00 weekly. The aim was that each child would have a sum of money set aside foor them that they could access when they were 18 and leave care. I know the money does not belong to the children because they left our care over 10 years ago and regular deposits were still being made into the account until very recently. My understanding is that she transferred the money collected in account when they left our care to the new carers but kept the actual account open. When I questioned her about this, she sent a photo showing account closed and money transferred into a new account. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing who this account belongs to. 

Nash1962

In addition to this, we looked after many children and she had a number of other accounts opened for other children who were looked after. I am aware of three more but don't know the account numbers. Unfortunately, she claims she has closed those accounts but there is no way of proving this. I suspect that she has at least 5-6 accounts where she has salted money away in a similar way. 

Voyager2002

If she really has hidden away savings on the scale, and if you have a realistic claim on the money, then you have far more to gain than the cost of a solicitor. I suggest that have an initial meeting with one and explain the situation, and try to come to some arrangement to defer payment until funds have been located and recovered.

Nash1962

I have been to a number of different solicitors and they all want me to pay money up front before they do anything. I'm stuck on that front as I am currently living in basic universal credits. 

74jax

How long were you married?