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financial order or agreement

separatedinsamehome
Posts: 49 Forumite

Hi all,
So i have recently divorced from my wife, she has remarried. We have two children both under 18 and for the most part the divorce has been amicable.
We agreed that we would not sell the family home (which I inherited from my parents and has always been in my name and I have always paid the mortgage which was on it) as it would be too disruptive to the children. What we agreed in principal was that I would try and get additional borrowing on the house to be able to give her as a lump sum to help set up, rather than her going after the house and possibly forcing a sale. The children would be living with me in the family home whilst she moves to a property with her new husband.
I am trying to keep this post free of emotion but I admit its hard to do that. Anyway.
I am worried about not having any financial agreement signed, I want to make sure that if her new husband tells her to go after the house she can't do that, it will leave me and the kids vulnerable, especially if I pass away before her.
We agreed that we would not sell the family home (which I inherited from my parents and has always been in my name and I have always paid the mortgage which was on it) as it would be too disruptive to the children. What we agreed in principal was that I would try and get additional borrowing on the house to be able to give her as a lump sum to help set up, rather than her going after the house and possibly forcing a sale. The children would be living with me in the family home whilst she moves to a property with her new husband.
I am trying to keep this post free of emotion but I admit its hard to do that. Anyway.
I am worried about not having any financial agreement signed, I want to make sure that if her new husband tells her to go after the house she can't do that, it will leave me and the kids vulnerable, especially if I pass away before her.
I dont have much money to be getting lots of solicitors involved and want to just try and move on with my life, whats the most cost effective way to get a legally binding financial agreement between us that protects the home for the kids.
Any help is appreciated.
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Comments
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You don't need a lawyer to sort out your financial settlement. You can write out what you've jointly agreed, preferably over a cuppa with your ex, somewhere neutral.
Do you know how much the ex wants to get? And can you raise the required mortgage?
Then get a solicitor to go over your document and ask questions. You could try wikivorce? Go over any queries with the ex and re-write. You may need a lawyer to write the petition, I don't know.
The consent order goes to the judge, who may query points. If the judge is happy that both parties agree, even if the settlement is unusual, they can grant the consent order.
We have seen at least one order where a spouse granted a lot to the ex but kept their pension. Queried but granted.
We've also seen some horrendous tales when people fully DIYed. The worst was a wife who paid half the equity to her ex to come off the mortgage, and let him keep a wholly owned house overseas as it was in his name. The UK house was a joint tenancy, she couldn't remortgage and she'd left the house to the kids. She completely failed to understand the situation.
The other thing is sooner the better. House values may not be increasing as much but once you start paying off money, the equity increases, even if ex contributes nothing.
If you've have not made a mistake, you've made nothing0 -
You can get a solicitor to do a fixed price financial consent order for you for a few hundred pounds. Basically you submit what you have agreed and they will formulate the legalese and submit it to a court for their approval.1
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When I got divorced, we agreed eveything between us and got a solicitor to do the financial consent order for us, which cost me £950 + VAT, which was a fixed price. The consent order needs to be drawn up by a solicitor, but everything else you can do yourself....0
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Agree with other posters. Agreed it with the ex in person in principle. Then have a solicitor turn it into a formal document. This gets checked by her and her solicitor. It can then be redrafted and then sent to the court for approval (not the formal term, I'm not a lawyer!). This minimises costs but also had the formal approval needed.
Word of caution: do not be tempted to skip the court stage. If there's no formal sign off, then it is considered open and new assets can be gone after, depending on circumstances.0 -
thanks all for the replies, I have spoken to some solicitors and been quoted around £3,000 and more! Can any of you recommend some of the ones you have used which were cheaper
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what do you all think if this service?
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separatedinsamehome said:what do you all think if this service?
Just be aware that things can start amicable and then end up not so - which is what happened in my case so I had to bin off this service and get proper representation.
What you won't get using this kind of service is much in the way of advice - it's literally just there to produce a legal agreement. So if you are unsure of anything or can't agree on things then it might be wiser to go elsewhere.1 -
Hiya, thanks so much for sharing your experience of it, at the moment it is very straight forward, having spoken to a lawyer my ex has not left herself in the best situation by remarrying so quickly, especially as the children will be living with me. It is amicable and we have agreed on things so at the moment is just a case of drafting. But as you said people and things can change very quickly. I think I am going to start with this in the hope it continues to be amicable and try get it drafted asap
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Do not forget you can shop around for anything by randomly ringing family solicitors and getting estimates of costs for straighforward financial settlements.1
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yeah, been asking around and getting quotes of thousands! I just can't afford that
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