Can my ex do this? 2 July 2021 at 10:16AM in Marriage, relationships & families 8 replies 1.2K views

dottyden

My ex will not provide a financial statement. She  refuses to engage a solicitor and now she is ringing my solicitor with queries. So my solicitor is charging me for her queries.
Can I instruct my solicitor to refuse her phone calls and not answer emails?my ex  has refused all contact for 5 years.

GeordieGeorge

Yes, you can and should instruct them that you do not authorise any work on her behalf.

I’m a bit surprised that they are doing it in the first place, they possibly thought (or she told them?) that you had agreed to it.

Pollycat

I'm surprised too that they have engaged with someone who is not a client.

I would be querying their charges for this.

Bossyboots

She is acting as a litigant in person so the solicitor will need to deal with her directly.  A fee would be incurred for dealing with solicitors acting for her (phone call or attendance chanrges) but perhaps they would be making less calls.  Instructing the solicitor to not deal with her would therefore be counter productive as she is not legally obliged to instruct a solicitor.  Setting some boundaries may help to keep the costs down.  She would of course be obliged to file the financial statement but it could be a long road to getting this done.

tacpot12

You can stop your solicitor giving her any legal advice but as Bossyboots says they can charge for the time dealing with her as the litigant in person if you ask them to do. The alternative is that you de-instruct your solicitor and re--engage them to provide legal advice to you, but not to represent you to your ex. She will then have to talk to you and only you and vice versa. 

sassyblue

If she doesn’t know what to do and your solicitor is advising her what to do it could help you to get your finances sorted, however, your solicitor will be able to advise you of what she’s actually helping her with, but absolutely you can tell your solicitor not to answer her queries and question the work thus far,

Bossyboots

For clarity, the OP's solicitor should not be ADVISING the ex.  That would be a conflict.  Sometimes it doesn't hurt to be helpful if an LIP has a genuine query and needs steering in the right direction, but they most definitely should not be providing legal advice or billing the OP for this.

sassyblue

She has a conflict of interests if she gives her LEGAL advice, but if she’s asking what financial documents she needs to submit it’s not a conflict. It does depend but costs ought to be minimal to be fair, especially if the ex is being crafty in trying to increase his legal costs….

dottyden

Thank you all for quick responses - much appreciated