Protecting my money from his ex wife 10 November 2021 at 6:36PM in Marriage, relationships & families 5 replies 908 views

Sparkyred

Hi all I’m after a bit of advice. My partner of 6 years and I would like to get married. He is divorced from his ex wife, however the financial settlement hasn’t gone through. It had gone to court, they wanted one more piece of info which my partner supplied, they then had to resign. He resigned. She didn’t despite her solicitors trying for two years to contact her. She has had quite a considerable amount of money from us as we bought her out of their marital home. Her solicitors have now advised us that they have closed her file as she just doesn’t respond to them. In this two year period I have inherited some money, but we are concerned that if we get married she may make a claim on my partners finances and once we’re married that would include my money too. Am I correct in thinking this is the case? We’ve been advised that we could threaten to take her to court to get the financial settlement sorted but it would cost around £10,000 and we don’t have that kind of money to spare but it is putting our lives on hold. Any advice would be gratefully received.

tacpot12

Your partner has very few options: 

• He could offer her (more) money to sign the consent order - I would only pay her through her solicitors on condition that she gets the money when the consent order is granted by the court. 
• He could go to court to ask the court to decide in her absence, and run the case himself. It will only cost £10,000 if he expects the solicitor to do all the work necessary.

I would not advise "threatening to take her to court". If he wants to ask a court to decide what will happen, he should just go to court. She can stop the case by signing the consent order. 

The court may order her to attend, or want evidence of where she is and that she has been served notices. He may need to employ a private investigator, and her financial information may be out of date, so some investigation may be needed to establish up to date financial information.  All in all, the best case would be to make it worth her while to sign the consent order. 

This link might help:
 
Money and property when you divorce or separate: Get the court to decide - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)   

Keep_pedalling

She can’t touch your money if you keep sole ownership of it.

ZaSa1418

He needs to get this sorted before you get married. He can go to court himself without a solicitor with all the evidence and they can make an order. 

MEM62

Sparkyred said:

We’ve been advised that we could threaten to take her to court to get the financial settlement sorted but it would cost around £10,000 and we don’t have that kind of money to spare but it is putting our lives on hold. 

That statement leads me to believe that the amount of inheritance is not sufficiently substantial that it is worth you paying these legal fess to protect it.  In that case it is not sufficiently substantial that you should let it put your life-plans on hold.  Just get married and worry about it if it raises its head at a later stage.    

TBagpuss

Had they reached agreement and it is literally just that she hadn't singed the forms? If that's the case, then he may be able to apply to the court and issue a notice to show cause- basically saying that she must show cause 9give good reasons to the court) why an order should not be made in the terms previously agreed. If they had previously signed an order but just didn't finalise it this may work.

£10,000 might be the cost if he has to start from scratch and got to a fully contested final hearing but in most cases costs would be a lot less than that. 

unless and until an order is made, then it is open to her to make a claim so the only way to keep your assets safe would be for you and your partner to keep your finances totally separate.