Enforcing a court order - application notice D11 21 April 2021 at 10:48AM in Marriage, relationships & families 12 replies 713 views

Asonedoorcloses

Does anyone have any experience of applying to the courts to enforce a court order? More specifically, to ask the court to enforce directions made within a Financial Settlements case?
My ex has not co operated with any court orders and has ignored all attempts at sorting out our finances and without necessary information I cannot make any proposals to settle. I need full disclosure from him which he is not giving  Our FDR last December has been deferred until July due to the lack of information, the judge ordered that he answer my Schedule of Deficiencies but I received nothing. I have made 2 more attempts to ask him to provide full disclosure as we cannot make any attempts to settle the finances and then finalise the divorce but it falls on deaf ears. I was told to apply to the court to get the last orders enforced but will anything actually happen? 
Thank you

TBagpuss

It's tricky, as the court cannot physically force him to provide information - what they can ultimately do is make a decision based on the information in front of them - so eventually you could put forward a proposal based on your best guess as to his financial position.

Yu can potentially also ask the court to make a wasted costs order against him for the hearings which are ineffective because of his failure to comply.

What assets are there? I appreciate that you don't have details from him but presumably you know whether or not there is a house, roughly what his income is (or was when you separated) and whether he has a pension, and if you think he has other assets.

Asonedoorcloses

I have also been given advice to make a high proposal in lieu of the missing information, basically what you just said - make some sort of guess as to what he isn't providing information about. 

He has shares in a (family owned) limited company which he won't provide a valuation for, there is a savings account that there is clear evidence of (money going in and out of from his current account and another savings account he has disclosed) that he will not disclose the balance for, a forecast of dividend payments he will receive from said family company and he won't confirm whether or not he has a private pension (I seem to remember him having one, I would like him to confirm it or not!). So not silly stuff but things that could effect a fair settlement.

The only thing that has been valued and is in the pot at the moment is our Family home. He is adamant that the home is the only thing that should be split and believes I will get no more than 50%.

Your input is appreciated, thank you.

TBagpuss

OK - the family owned company - have you checked Company's house to see if they have filed accounts (may not have if small).
does the company own assets ?  Do they own their own premises (you can do a land registry search on the address) ? 

You could look for similar types of businesses for sale to make an initial guess at value  (e.g. https://www.daltonsbusiness.com/buy/business-for-sale-listing) 

Generally the aim is to over estimate and then it becomes in his interests to produce the evidence to prove you wrong.

Or just go in with a proposal that you get the house and he keeps the business and savings (unless you think they are likely to be worth significantly more) Bear in mind that a business is usually a more risk y investment than a house, and less liquid.

Pension - do you have any idea who the pension is with? 

If you know what company it is with then the court can make an order giving you (say) 59% of the pension even if you don't know the full value, and can also make orders allowing relevant paperwork to be signed by a judge on his behalf if he won't do it. You'll probably need a solicitor involved to sort out the wording, though. 

Do you know what level of dividends he used to receive in the past? If so, it's reasonable t assume that they will stay the same in future and are a good indicator of his income. 

Asonedoorcloses

Thank you once again for your reply.

I did a little search and the company is a micro-entity, I knew it was small and it appears that they do not need to provide any details of its financial position apart from the bare minimum. The accounts they have filed do not give any indication of profits. The shares he holds are C ordinary shares and if the company cannot have an annual turnover of more than £632K in order to be a 'micro-entity' then its a guessing game as to how much the shares are worth! I know nothing about shares or their values.

I know he has a SIPP but I was advised by a solicitor with whom I get advice ad hoc that he may well have a private pension as well and I cannot remember the company it might be with. All I wanted was for him to confirm that the SIPP is the only pension he holds but he won't give me that.

He would receive a basic wage of just over £1300 and dividends on top of £2700. With the bank statements he did provide with his Form E they showed the dividends had stopped last May, his explanation being due to Covid. That was fair enough but I can bet your bottom dollar that they have resumed or will resume in the near future bringing his total monthly income to over £4k a month.  A totally separate subject but the child maintenance payments were only calculated on his basic wage which seemed so incredibly unfair to me who was struggling.

Anyway, back to the question in hand. I may well make the proposal of keeping the house without touching his business or pension, I am more interested in providing a home for the children at this present time, I feel his non compliance is doing just what he intended it to do and cause me worry and stress and a bloody hard fight!

sassyblue

I think putting forward the proposal that you receive the entire asset of the fmh is a good one, it’s a pity men like your husband aren’t penalised a lot more, even committed to prison

https://raydensolicitors.co.uk/blog/failure-to-disclose-can-mean-a-prison-sentence/

Markneath

The business will probably be valued at its net assets value. 

The chances are if older family members are involved and the fact he holds c shares then he only currently holds a small share of the company shares. There’s no strict rule but it’s usually the ones with the a shares holding the majority of ownership.

When you were with him you would have benefited from him paying less tax and Ni on his income via his dividends unfortunately the down side is that cms payments will be lower as they usually work on taxable income. 

How long were you married and whats the nature of the business? 

Asonedoorcloses

Yes I totally agree, just a penal notice of significant amount attached to the court orders would be sufficient to put off some people from being uncooperative. I asked for just that when ex refused to answer the schedule of deficiencies back in December but was duly ignored...if it had been granted then perhaps I would have received the information I requested and made an offer to settle long before now thus avoiding wasting more court time and resources.

Asonedoorcloses

Markneath said:

The business will probably be valued at its net assets value. 

The chances are if older family members are involved and the fact he holds c shares then he only currently holds a small share of the company shares. There’s no strict rule but it’s usually the ones with the a shares holding the majority of ownership.

When you were with him you would have benefited from him paying less tax and Ni on his income via his dividends unfortunately the down side is that cms payments will be lower as they usually work on taxable income. 

How long were you married and whats the nature of the business? 

I know he owns 1% of the business, his mum 49% and dad 50%. His mum was to give him her share when she retires which is very soon (shes 67) but his parents split up and sold their house shortly after we parted ways! She still runs the office side of things with the business registered to her new house and his dad still works the management side of it - it's a construction company. Very odd really but I have a feeling his mum is stalling giving up her share until our settlement is over this preventing me from getting any of it but what can I do??

We were together 9 years, married for 5.

sassyblue

I think you can strike off benefitting from any share in the company if he legally only holds 1%.

As for pensions, the solicitor I work for, and those on the other side I’ve seen always argue that only the years of the marriage are relevant for settlement purposes although others on here disagree with me.  In all my years working I have never seen anyone walk away with say, half share of a pension if it was a short marriage - and your 5 years is relatively short. I would only argue for half in your position if he’d only taken out the pension since you’d been together.

TBagpuss

sassyblue said:

I think putting forward the proposal that you receive the entire asset of the fmh is a good one, it’s a pity men like your husband aren’t penalised a lot more, even committed to prison

https://raydensolicitors.co.uk/blog/failure-to-disclose-can-mean-a-prison-sentence/

Well, you can make an application for committal for contempt of court, for his failure to file a form E.

Courts will do it, but it's up to you to apply.

They would typically start with a suspended committal, so might give him (say) 7 days to file the form e and have him arrested and committed to prison if he doesn't. But it's no common as most people either provide information, or come to a settlement, before you get to that point.