Divorce - Financial Remedy Process

sto33

Does anyone here have experience of the Financial Remedy court process? I thought everything was settled, but I have received another notice to attend court next month.

I have been going through divorce for the last 2 years. Divorce was finalised and Decree Absolute issued in February this year.

During the divorce my ex applied to the court for Financial Remedy. We came to agreement before there was any financial hearing and the court approved this.

My ex was then unhappy with how quickly we were getting the house on the market, and prematurely made an application to the court to force a sale.

We both attended court in June in front of a district judge. By this time our house was sold STC. The judge observed that all was progressing well and made an order which I received in the post.

The order stated the application to enforce the house sale would be stayed until 13th September, and if not restored by that date, it would be dismissed.

House sale is progressing, we have both signed the sale contract and are expecting exchange to take place imminently.

I thought everything was settled and thought I would no longer need to attend court. However, I have now received a notice to attend court from Financial Remedy, the hearing is next month and timetabled for 1-hour, I have no other details.

I am confused about how this hearing has come about. Does this mean my ex has made another application to the court? I find it hard to believe they have tabled another 1-hour hearing of their own accord, just to check we are still both happy with everything.

I have contacted my ex via email to ask if she has made another application and she is avoiding the question. I also asked her what her issues, if any are, because maybe we can resolve them outside of court. Her response was simply that I will receive a position statement the day before the hearing.

tacpot12

Can you have some legal advice lined up to be available the day before the hearing? 

sto33

I can get legal advice arranged. I am trying determine if this is a normal court process to have another hearing, or has this hearing been applied for or triggered by something.

MattMattMattUK

She may be being difficult and if you have exchanged and ideally completed before the court date then everything will be wrapped up by the court date, which is fine.

That being said, being SSTC in June and still not exchanged when we are just about to enter November could also very much seem like you are delaying the process so she may just be covering her bases on the basis that she thinks you have delayed deliberately so far and you pay continue to do so.

You say she "prematurely applied to the court" because the house was SSTC, now she could be being entirely unreasonable but I suspect she would say you have deliberately delayed both the marketing and sale of the property. 

Is there a valid reason it took so long to put the house on the market when you have been getting divorced for 2+ years, divorce was finalised in Feb and the house was under offer in June but contracts have still not been exchanged five months on?

sto33 said:

I can get legal advice arranged. I am trying determine if this is a normal court process to have another hearing, or has this hearing been applied for or triggered by something.

My understanding is it is triggered by the other party informing the court that the issue has not been resolved.

sto33

Thanks for the reply. We have attended court 7 times so far during our divorce, so everything became very protracted. We attended court 5 times over child arrangements and now have 50:50 custody. My ex also started family law proceedings against me to attempt to get a non-molestation order against me. We were still attending court in April this year on child matters. 

House sale has been really slow, which is really frustrating because I pay the mortgage, but no longer live there. The house went on the market in April and sold within a week, conveyancers were instructed immediately, but our house chain has been incredibly slow. We were still responding to queries from our buyer last week. Apparently we are now only waiting on one query upon the first house in the chain, then we can exchange.