What do I do if I don't believe financial disclosure?

JoshWW1111

I'm currently going through a divorce and we're going through mediation. We're at the stage where we're making financial disclosures, and I'm really not sure I believe what my ex is disclosing.

The house is worth around 360k and it's paid off so we've agreed 50/50. That's fine. 

But everything else he's saying seems unbelievable. 

We're both in our 60s. I've worked part time my entire life, and he's either been self employed or in really good permanent jobs for about 45 years. When it came to disclosing our pensions, mine was valued at 42k and his was valued at 45k. That seems unbelievably low for him. 

Also, during our life together, we've always gone on nice holidays and basically lived a very comfortable life. He's now declaring he has hardly anything in his bank.

As he's self employed right now, I know he does a lot of cash in hand jobs, which he obviously isn't declaring. I know he does that but can't evidence it.

He used to have a sizeable collection of certain things (I don't want to reveal too much) that he always told me were worth thousands, and yet, to the mediator, he declared they were all fakes. I can't prove that either way but it seems very coincidental. 

Basically, long story short - I just don't believe it. I know he has other bank accounts because he's told me verbally but I have no evidence. 

I have very limited funds myself right now. My part time job hardly earns me anything. So I can't really afford to hire a solicitor to try and look into all his lies - and I definitely can't afford it if he's somehow telling the truth and I get the solicitor bill with no extra division of assets.

I know he's aware of my financial situation and using that knowledge to pressure me into accepting just 50/50 on the house and just letting everything else go. 

I don't really know what to do next. Does anyone have any advice for me?

Thanks

DullGreyGuy

Some people save their money, some people spend their money, if you've had nice holidays and a comfortable life it could be why.  My father died rather than divorced but when it happen my mother found that his 35 years of working in good job and subsequently running a fairly successful company had ended up with no pension, no savings and a vast amount of loans and maxed out credit cards. He'd spent all the money he'd earned and he was effectively the company so it failed in the last 2 years of his life when he was too ill to work and he'd substituted it with credit. 


Do you have a solicitor? Have you discussed your concerns with them?

Have you received the Form E? Have you looked through the statements to see where monies are moving etc? Any banks you remembering him mentioning that weren't declared? If it's vast amounts of data you can use forensic accountants to try and spot money hiding. 

If the sums are large and you dont have a solicitor it may be a prudent decision to engage one 

LightFlare

JoshWW1111 said:

I'm currently going through a divorce and we're going through mediation. We're at the stage where we're making financial disclosures, and I'm really not sure I believe what my ex is disclosing.

The house is worth around 360k and it's paid off so we've agreed 50/50. That's fine. 

But everything else he's saying seems unbelievable. 

We're both in our 60s. I've worked part time my entire life, and he's either been self employed or in really good permanent jobs for about 45 years. When it came to disclosing our pensions, mine was valued at 42k and his was valued at 45k. That seems unbelievably low for him. 

Also, during our life together, we've always gone on nice holidays and basically lived a very comfortable life. He's now declaring he has hardly anything in his bank.

As he's self employed right now, I know he does a lot of cash in hand jobs, which he obviously isn't declaring. I know he does that but can't evidence it.

He used to have a sizeable collection of certain things (I don't want to reveal too much) that he always told me were worth thousands, and yet, to the mediator, he declared they were all fakes. I can't prove that either way but it seems very coincidental. 

Basically, long story short - I just don't believe it. I know he has other bank accounts because he's told me verbally but I have no evidence. 

I have very limited funds myself right now. My part time job hardly earns me anything. So I can't really afford to hire a solicitor to try and look into all his lies - and I definitely can't afford it if he's somehow telling the truth and I get the solicitor bill with no extra division of assets.

I know he's aware of my financial situation and using that knowledge to pressure me into accepting just 50/50 on the house and just letting everything else go. 

I don't really know what to do next. Does anyone have any advice for me?

Thanks

You both could have been living beyond your means for years - hence why there not a lot left in the “pot”

tacpot12

The declaration to the mediatior that the collections were all fakes seems inconceivable if he has paid the full price for the items (which I'm sure he did). The mediator should not have been duped so easily. 

It's possible that the £45K pension valuation is correct, but it is only for one of his pensions. Can you remember all the employers he had? LinkedIn might  have a full employment history on it for him, failing than an old CV might give you the names of his previous employers.

Anyone working full-time for a large employer for 45 years is likely to have built up a very large pension pot (c£500,000) but periods of self-employment can mean that he didn't contribute to a pension in this time. As his wife, did he not discuss whether he was saving anything for his retirement when he was self employed. If you have access to any accounts he may have filed with Companies House, or have left on an old computer, you might be able to see that he made contributions to pension schemes.

JoshWW1111

I do have access to Companies House - what specific document might show pension contributions? 

AskAsk

Without a solicitor and even with one, it is very difficult to challenge someone lying about their assets for the financial disclosure as it isn't a criminal case.  I think this is wrong and that the disclosure should be treated as a criminal case if there is a dispute.

The form does state that it will be treated as contempt of court if the information given is incorrect.  So if there is a dispute, you will need to have a hearing and at that point the court can ask your ex, where he is less likely to lie to the judge than to a mediator.  But to get a hearing, it will be expensive and at that point it is actually advisable to employ a barrister to fight your case.

The legal costs can be rediculous if you keep arguing.  My friend and his ex-spouse spent over £100,000 in legal fees fighting over assets.

gm0

Lawyers will cost the pair of you 200k dead easy.  To fight this out the long way round.  And end up with slightly different shares of a much smaller pie. That's a route you are legally able to go down and which provides an incentive for them to behave a bit better to avoid it - if you handle it sensibly. You may struggle funding your legal support needs.  Once people end mediation and say - nothing further to say - lawyering up now. It tends to ratchet to a smaller pie bad place.  Lawyers having little incentive to tell you to stop until they have eaten the lot and your credit line.  Write another letter. Bill another thousand.

The cash in hand self-employed or with a new partner person has many options to re-organise their employment and records and savings around divorce the better to minimise any asset hunting or income sharing (where relevant) success.  Once a fight begins.  Their incentive to avoid getting caught holding traceable assets is very clear.  Much better that they vanish before they are listed and evidenced.  You can't share what you don't have and which the other side cannot find or prove you had at the time of divorce. Shrug. It was never there. It's gone.  Here are my savings accounts now.

If there is £5m or even >£500k of hidden assets.  Then it's likely worth *trying* to mediate a better settlement but being ready to quickly bring a more legalistic route in to go after 250k+.  

But if you are chasing half of 50k to 100k it's frankly - a bit of a fools errand.  As the lawyers take it all.  The incentive being a cleaner break - and accepting some rough justice but reduced hassle - lawyers, combative court days). 

You should however make sure that the house disposal and dispersal of funds is properly legally sorted on the financial settlement and conveyancing.  You don't want to be chasing the ex for your share.  Formalised to suit the divorce and the prior joint / in common tenancy.  Common transaction for legal support.  Go to wikivorce or other sources of advice. Not my expertise.

Prioritise the big and the small and the hard and the easy

1 Pension history is the most important topic after the house.

Being confident about employment history.  Most large employers did offer pensions in the relevant 80s onwwards times - but sector dependent. With long periods of corporate employment from long ago and having "opted in".  It is hard to save that little.  Then you had to choose to join (offered at induction typically).  Now you have to choose not to join.  (Autoenrollment).  

It is possible to have opted out when in particular jobs, had contributions refunded (below minimum service in a DB scheme - 5 years for the young at one time.  So you are 4 years older. And have some cash (then). But no pension for those years.  If they then moved to self employment and were limited by cashflow and did not make new arrangements.   The average size of DC pension is not large.  From ONS/CharlesStanley data (google) for men in their 60s it would be ~200k but the range is vast.  From close to zero.  To millions for the large company director highest paid group.  So it is impossible to say if there are another 3 hidden 50k pots.  Or a nice DB pension entitlement from long ago (that they don't want to share) and is worth a lot more.  Or it is in fact true - a life lived on cashflow and nothing much more was saved.  Something to try to pursue further based on what you know of FULL employment history.   Why is there so little pension.  You worked at x,y,z.  The one not to miss would be public sector employment of any signficant duration which created an index linked income entitlement.  Even if this predates your marriage.  It is now in play for the true up.  From the list of employers to the list of schemes to the values.  That's the trail that would be followed if it went legal disclosure, pot values, cetvs etc.   If there is a good pension hiding - there is  strong incentive to avoid it entering the true up.  A pension sharing order is made or the value split of the house is altered the correct amount.  Which leaves them without housing capital.  If they can escape without the sharing order and with half the house - they certainly will.

Conversely if there is a history with several small/medium businesses say working a construction trade. Then it may be the case that there was no pension scheme - until it became a legal requirement for employers to arrange one. And it was up to your ex to make a personal pension plan - or not.

2 Savings if there are or could feasibly have been serious amounts.  Again if you don't know that there is some material pot.  And where it was at a point in time relevant to divorce.  Chasing 5k with lawyers - no way.

3 Stuff - You haven't said what the collection of stuff is.  If it's 500k of old ferraris and aston martins - then there is a decent sum of value to split.  But if it's model railways, a couple of flashy (but possibly fake) rolexes or other things like books/music/wine/china - then with rarity exceptions - it's pretty unlikely to be worth commissioning lawyers to attempt to chase it.  A poor prospect of return to pay lawyers to push the partner to properly inventory, get independent expert appraisal and valuation etc.  And to do so honestly.  Some "select" high value suspected items will have a little accident and vanish into hiding anyway. No such item. Value now 0.  No easy audit tail of bad behaviour.  Appraisal net costs becomes meh.  If you don't already have a fair grip on what this is. Someone bragging about having great expert judgement and collecting "valuable" stuff long ago - doesn't make it true.  Something expensive to buy may not be expensive at resale.  If finding out (lawyers and appraisal costs 10-20k - it had better be a valuable "set") not just a couple of *possible* rolexes or "designer" jackets and jumpers of dubious resale value.

Employment now - I'd put aside the whole cash in hand / HMRC thing as an irrelevance to the task at hand.  Assets and debts. Split.  Negotiated tradeoffs for ease of split to achieve the value split.   True income is pretty much irrelevant unless there is a child support or the rarer spouse maintenance discussion going on.

theoretica

A collection worth thousands - might he have discussed any of the items publicly on the internet somewhere?  Specifically insured them?

silverwhistle

theoretica said:

A collection worth thousands - might he have discussed any of the items publicly on the internet somewhere?  Specifically insured them?

Or even increased contents insurance?

MobileSaver

JoshWW1111 said:

He used to have a sizeable collection of certain things (I don't want to reveal too much) that he always told me were worth thousands, and yet, to the mediator, he declared they were all fakes.

Fakes or not, insist that you want half of the sizeable collection...

Exodi

MobileSaver said:

JoshWW1111 said:

He used to have a sizeable collection of certain things (I don't want to reveal too much) that he always told me were worth thousands, and yet, to the mediator, he declared they were all fakes.

Fakes or not, insist that you want half of the sizeable collection...

I kind of resent this whole scenario but what would be stopping him from announcing that he unfortunately 'lost' his sizable collection?

The amount of threads we see were exes 'forget' to disclose valuable assets, or conveniently 'lose' them during the process, seemingly without punishment, I'm amazed anyone bothers declaring anything.