Ex Wife Causing Problems with Marital Home

TBagpuss

So far as the home contents are concerned, the problem is that the court can only value them at what their second hand resale value would be, not what they would cost to replace. As most furnishings and home contents have pretty low resale values tis does normally mean that the value you might get back for her taking them would be low and would normally be less than you might spend in legal costs trying to get them back / get compensated for the,, so generally a solicitor will advise that it isn't cost effective to pursue.

Obviously if there are specific items where the 2nd hand value would be significant then you can provide evidence of that and ask the court to 'add back in' their value - basically record them as valuable assets she has retained and treat it as part of her share of the over all 'pot' 

You should also be able to record her actions in stripping the house as conduct in your Form E and as k for it to be taken into account if you ended up having any funds claimed by the buyers to remedy it. (if they were annoyed but took no formal action then you haven't suffered any loss so couldn't claim anything from her)

Regarding buying a new house - anything either of you has at the time that the court makes its decision has to be declared and forms part of the over all assets. If you bought a new place with a loan from your parents, then if that loan was a proper, formal, secured loan, registered against the property at the land registry, then it would mean that only the equity would be part of the assets , equally if you bought with a new mortgage the same would be true. The problem would be if the money was a gift or informal loan And if your parents were providing you with money for a deposit then the mortgage lenders would be unlikely to be happy with that as a loan, so they would likely require a formal 'gifted deposit' declaration stating it was a gift, and of course you can't either commit mortgage fraud by claiming it's a gift when it is really a loan, or commit perjury by claiming to the family court it is a loan where it is really a gift .

There's also the issue that even of it is genuinely a loan, a court has to consider both your needs when splitting the financial assets and if they can see that you have family support that can mean that you are perceived as having lower needs  - in most cases, parents / other family members are unlikely to sue for their money back even where it was a loan, and courts are well aware that an awful lot of loans-from-parents will turn into gifts once the financial court case is over. 

If you want to pursue the lost personal property ./ home contents make a list of the main items, research so you can provide evidence of their second hand sale value and what replacing them with a similar, second hand item would cost, and also make sure that you have evidence of your / your solicitors requests to be allowed access to collect items / be present to take your share on the house sale / proof of the state the house was left in by her on completion.

If you haven't already, get an application for a financial order started. It's normal to try to exchange Forms E and do disclosure voluntarily but there comes a point where it's clear you are getting nowhere and apply via the court is the only way to put a reasonable timescale on things and to come to a settlement. I assume that the proceeds of sale of the house are being held by the conveyancers? .

SteveVy

Hi Folks,

Sorry for the slow reply, I had numerous mental breakdowns / episodes due to the stress of divorce.

Just to update you we are still not any further in getting a resolution!

We exchanged FORM E's and she lied on the entire form and emptied her bank accounts! she also failed to provide the correct evidence (only 1 month worth of bank statements).

I completed everything honestly and gave all the evidence required.

We sent a list of questions, chased and chased and chased after 3 months they finally got back to us with partial answers.

I told my solicitor just make an offer to get this resolved its been almost 16 months and I've wasted £27,000 and counting!! My solicitor wasn't interested in resolving things and said we need to give them more time and wait for more evidence. It became clear to me he was 'milking me' charging me £2K a month and didn't want the case to be resolved so I fired him.

I am now representing myself and have submitted Form A, I have zero interest in going to court as this is ruining my life (mental health) but at the same time I don't want to loose everything I have worked for.

My initial offer for settlement of 50/50 of everything was rejected, I've been waiting 1 month for a response and I am being told by Friday I should have her counter offer.

I am now being told all my personal items she removed and admitted to removing in a letter from her solicitor were in fact "not removed from the house" and I am now being accused of having them. Even though I didn't have access to the house and have been asking for months for my items to be returned!

I have also been told I have stolen all her gold and personal items and that unless I agree to give her more than 50% of the money from the sale of proceeds she wont be interested in making a deal.

I am a honest person and I've never stolen anything in my life...

How can I resolve this situation and prove she is liar? (She was caught twice lying at work and was suspended twice and went to an employment tribunal)

I really don't have the time or money to go court, I understand going to court will take another 3/9 months. I want this finished in a few weeks!

Any ideas welcome...

 

Wyndham

I don't have any answers for your situation, but your story has touched me so much and I'm sorry you are going through this.

If you haven't already, I strongly suggest that you get in touch with someone to help with your mental health. I'm concerned that further up the thread you said about feeling suicidal, and I hope you got help back then. Please be aware that no situation is so bad that there isn't a way forward, even if it's not always easy.

This is a link to an NHS site, which then links to other areas which may be able to help you: https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/mental-health-services/

caprikid1

Hi, you are racking up costs, how much equity is in the house ?

It might be cheaper to walk away / offer a lot less to close this and move on.

AskAsk

SteveVy said:

Hi Folks,

Sorry for the slow reply, I had numerous mental breakdowns / episodes due to the stress of divorce.

Just to update you we are still not any further in getting a resolution!

We exchanged FORM E's and she lied on the entire form and emptied her bank accounts! she also failed to provide the correct evidence (only 1 month worth of bank statements).

I completed everything honestly and gave all the evidence required.

We sent a list of questions, chased and chased and chased after 3 months they finally got back to us with partial answers.

I told my solicitor just make an offer to get this resolved its been almost 16 months and I've wasted £27,000 and counting!! My solicitor wasn't interested in resolving things and said we need to give them more time and wait for more evidence. It became clear to me he was 'milking me' charging me £2K a month and didn't want the case to be resolved so I fired him.

I am now representing myself and have submitted Form A, I have zero interest in going to court as this is ruining my life (mental health) but at the same time I don't want to loose everything I have worked for.

My initial offer for settlement of 50/50 of everything was rejected, I've been waiting 1 month for a response and I am being told by Friday I should have her counter offer.

I am now being told all my personal items she removed and admitted to removing in a letter from her solicitor were in fact "not removed from the house" and I am now being accused of having them. Even though I didn't have access to the house and have been asking for months for my items to be returned!

I have also been told I have stolen all her gold and personal items and that unless I agree to give her more than 50% of the money from the sale of proceeds she wont be interested in making a deal.

I am a honest person and I've never stolen anything in my life...

How can I resolve this situation and prove she is liar? (She was caught twice lying at work and was suspended twice and went to an employment tribunal)

I really don't have the time or money to go court, I understand going to court will take another 3/9 months. I want this finished in a few weeks!

Any ideas welcome...

 

this sounds like my friend's divorce.  I think it is a failure in the english laws that people can lie and omit facts on declarations to the court about finances.  This should be compulsory, like disclosure to HMRC or the courts for cases of financial fraud, as without this in place, it is impossible to split assets if one party will not co-operate.

my friend's wife put her money into her sister's name so she claims to have no assets.  she wouldn't answer questions on the asset declaration and challenged my friend on all his declarations.  she even got the courts to freeze his savings and pension account so he had to take out a loan to go on holiday.  he was at the point of having a mental breakdown several times.  all this went on for 3 years before it finally got completed and he still lost out big style from the marriage.  between them, they spent more than £100k on legal fees arguing over assets, and they are just an average family, so they didn't even have a huge amount of assets to fight over!

i don't know what the answer is for you, but it looks like you just have to step back and try to deal with it in a detached way with a lot of patience.  divorce can be a complete mess if it is not amicable.

RAS

Have you been in touch wikivorce? 

SteveVy

Thank you all for your kind words. 

In regards to my mental health I attend counselling 2/3 times a week and this has helped. However, the divorce is consuming me and I find it difficult sleep and even concentrate at work as I want it over with.

There is £200K equity in the house and I have worked out for my future financial needs (rehousing / repurchase all furniture /items again that she took from me / paying off debts) £100K will definitely put me on the right track. With the current interest rates I will need to put down around £50K for a deposit. I have very little savings now due to the solicitor costs taking most of my money. 

Yes I found out about wikivorce today they were excellent and really helped

I will keep everyone updated and thank you again for your help. 

SteveVy

Just wanted to keep everyone updated, I spoke to the wonderful people at Wikivorce!! They were super helpful and I've booked a paid consultation with them.

In the meantime I sent an opening offer to my ex wife's solicitor explaining why a 50/50 split of the marital house is fair.

After around 10 days she replied saying 'No a 75/25 split in her favour is fair, simple because I earn more than she does. The letter then went out to explain why she needs to purchase a £500,000 2 bedroom flat in the Midlands.

I would like to remind everyone reading, it was a short marriage of less than six years and we have no children, we both are in highly paid jobs and are 'young'.

The letter then also included a made up list of items that I apparently stole from the house with a total value of £50,000 and I was asked to confirm which I had, and for those that I didn't have I would need to pay a 'penalty fee'. The list was quite funny and she claimed items that I had purchased for her should belong to her but then items she purchased for me should also belong to her. The list was obviously fake and contained no description / images or even correct monetary values.

So in total the deal would be:

£50K for me from the sales of proceeds, then around a £40K - £50K fine for all the missing items.

So She would pretty much get the full £200K

I took my time to calmly respond and set out again why a 50/50 split is fair and this time I included a breakdown of how much I would need to rehouse, and also stated the fact her salary was way above the average UK Salary. Also stated there are over 200+ right move listings for 2 bedroom flats in the midlands that are well under £300,000 so why she does she need to spend £500,000?

I also explained why I would be ignoring her list and stated several reasons for this.

I then put forward a further offer to let her also have all the money in our joint savings accounts around £2,500. 

So an improvement on my earlier offer.

I received a reply today saying 'your offer and our offer are too far apart, looks like we will see you in court'

To be honest I was very shocked at this and not sure if its a scare tactic..

Why would they walk away from negotiations after making 1 offer? Surely if it goes to court its going to look bad on them?

I've done lots of reading and apparently in our case

1) No Children

2) Short Marriage

3) Both in well paid jobs

4) No extenuating circumstances

It's a pretty much 'guarantee' the judge will split the sales of proceeds 50/50 regardless whether my salary is almost double hers

Pat38493

Is the "we'll see you in court" coming from your ex or from a solicitor?  If it's directly from your ex I would just ignore it and say you want to only communicate with her solicitor from now on.

I had a friend recently go through something not that dissimilar - he was told by his solicitor that typically in these situations, especially if one of the parties is prone to making up fake information to get more money that's hard to prove or disprove, one party will make ridiculously high demands and the other party should make ridiculously low offers and eventually it should meet somewhere in the middle.  Maybe your mistake is to offer 50/50 and you should be making up arguments whey 75/25 in your favour would be better.  

SteveVy

Pat38493 said:

Is the "we'll see you in court" coming from your ex or from a solicitor?  If it's directly from your ex I would just ignore it and say you want to only communicate with her solicitor from now on.

I had a friend recently go through something not that dissimilar - he was told by his solicitor that typically in these situations, especially if one of the parties is prone to making up fake information to get more money that's hard to prove or disprove, one party will make ridiculously high demands and the other party should make ridiculously low offers and eventually it should meet somewhere in the middle.  Maybe your mistake is to offer 50/50 and you should be making up arguments whey 75/25 in your favour would be better.  

It was from her solicitor....I haven't spoken to my ex wife for almost 10 months...we are not on talking terms

I am thinking maybe it was a mistake to start at 50/50, I just didn't want to waste time and put out a ridiculous offer...

Lets see what happens, I'll keep the thread updated.

I've not heard anything back yet