Divorcing empty nesters...

[MYOB]

My case regarding access to my kids concluded today - without getting to the Final Hearing.

CAFCASS recommended an arrangement of a split of 42% - 58% in my ex's favour with half the holidays. The Judge admonished me for daring to dispute their recommendation and was highly critical me for wanting more than their recommendation. The ex also disputed their recommendation but caved in and agreed to their recommendation...and somehow allowed me an extra overnight stay that was my "red line" position.

Final outcome is 50/50 shared access despite CAFCASS recommendation and the Judge's stance.

One other thing that the Judge annoyed me on was his insistence that the Courts are only interested in the children's welfare and suggested that my actions were not in their interests. My sole interests was to get equal access to them, which would benefit them. It was ridiculous for the Judge to insinuate that I did not have the children's welfare/interests at heart. I took legal actions because my ex was only allowing me to see the children 4 nights in a fortnight - now I have half. Speaks for itself.

Still got the finances to resolve...oh joy.

[theboss]

Good news, well done.

I’m just about to start finances - the ex surprised me by instructing a new solicitor and getting in first with the form A. Doesn’t bother me in the slightest - it needs to be done. The CMS have also been put on my back with no warning despite maintaining our own agreement for the past 18 months.

[Gargamel]

What are the risks of just obtaining a financial consent order instead of a Court ordered Finance Order ?

[mr_spock]

Well done MYOB!

Gargamel - if you can agree a consent order the court still has to agree it. If you both have solicitors this should be a rubber stamp exercise, but if not then if it's unequal you may have to appear to explain it.

[Gargamel]

mr_spock said:

Well done MYOB!

Gargamel - if you can agree a consent order the court still has to agree it. If you both have solicitors this should be a rubber stamp exercise, but if not then if it's unequal you may have to appear to explain it.

Process I am good with, the bit that has me, is that with a consent order we just agree it.

But say in ten year she decides not to sign over half the house, what is my remedy ?

Can we go to court then ?

[PAUL500]

Most of these judge live on another planet! great to hear you got the access you wanted, and it should help with your financial order as well in theory.

Judges do not like 50/50 access with the financial process as they still want the ex wife to have a greater share of the assets regardless, and it puts a spanner in the works of their reasoning to do so.

[MYOB]

Thanks all for the best wishes.

I'm very pleased with the 50 50 - as suggested this ought to give me some weight in the ancillary matter now that we have shared access. Equally, the Court should pay no heed to any of the ex's spurious allegations in the ancillary matter and we should both be on equal footing. However, the ex completed Form E full of spurious claims of domestic abuse so she will attempt to use these but I remain confident the Court will no longer be interested in these and focus purely on finance matters.

I'll report back in upon the completion of this exercise.

Good luck to everyone else.

[MYOB]

Gargamel said:

What are the risks of just obtaining a financial consent order instead of a Court ordered Finance Order ?

I understand you can go to mediation and agree together a financial consent order, that will need to be prepared by solicitors and approved by yourselves. It is my understanding that these are legally enforced orders.

A Financial Order arranged at the Court will only occur if the parties do not agree at mediation (or in cases of domestic abuse allegations). Even then, the Courts will push for the parties to come to an agreement together and will wish to avoid imposing an Order on the parties.

This is my understanding and I may be incorrect on some points.

[Gargamel]

MYOB said:

Gargamel said:

What are the risks of just obtaining a financial consent order instead of a Court ordered Finance Order ?

I understand you can go to mediation and agree together a financial consent order, that will need to be prepared by solicitors and approved by yourselves. It is my understanding that these are legally enforced orders.

A Financial Order arranged at the Court will only occur if the parties do not agree at mediation (or in cases of domestic abuse allegations). Even then, the Courts will push for the parties to come to an agreement together and will wish to avoid imposing an Order on the parties.

This is my understanding and I may be incorrect on some points.

Thanks- was just re reading some of the government web pages.... Think I had better get a solicitor to look it over for me.

[theboss]

MYOB said:

Thanks all for the best wishes.

I'm very pleased with the 50 50 - as suggested this ought to give me some weight in the ancillary matter now that we have shared access. Equally, the Court should pay no heed to any of the ex's spurious allegations in the ancillary matter and we should both be on equal footing. However, the ex completed Form E full of spurious claims of domestic abuse so she will attempt to use these but I remain confident the Court will no longer be interested in these and focus purely on finance matters.

I'll report back in upon the completion of this exercise.

Good luck to everyone else.

How does she claim you were abusive? Was she able to sidestep mediation? I’d have thought there needed to be some evidence eg police records for a DV allegation to hold much weight.

Will be interested to hear how things progress as I won’t be far behind you in the process, in all likelihood.

[mr_spock]

MYOB said:

Gargamel said:

What are the risks of just obtaining a financial consent order instead of a Court ordered Finance Order ?

I understand you can go to mediation and agree together a financial consent order, that will need to be prepared by solicitors and approved by yourselves. It is my understanding that these are legally enforced orders.

A Financial Order arranged at the Court will only occur if the parties do not agree at mediation (or in cases of domestic abuse allegations). Even then, the Courts will push for the parties to come to an agreement together and will wish to avoid imposing an Order on the parties.

This is my understanding and I may be incorrect on some points.

Not quite. Let's assume you go to mediation - this part could also be done between you, or by paying solicitors lots of money to write to each other. The process is:

• Mediation, agree what you want - mediator prepares a Memorandum of Understanding that's sent to both
• The Petitioner's solicitor prepares a draft Consent Order which is then batted between the two solicitors until agreement on the detail and wording is complete. This is NOT a doc you can write, the wording and headings are very specific and it's worth taking the time to get this right
• The draft Consent Order is signed by both parties and their solicitors
• The draft is submitted to the court. If the court is happy, it's then a legal order and can be enforced by the court. Until then, it means nothing legally. The court can decide that they want to ask questions - such as, why is the wife agreeing to sell the house when she has 2 babies, or such like. This can be answered by the solicitors (ideally with an agreed response) or the judge can ask the parties to appear in front of him. This is unusual but possible - and is much more likely if there are no solicitors and you've just used an Order writing service like Wikivorce.

So, an agreement between you and your ex has no teeth whatsoever until the court agrees it, then it's a Consent Order.

A Finance Order is when each party presents a "bundle" of docs to the court and asks the Judge to decide on the outcome. They constantly encourage the parties to come to an agreement rather than impose something, even at the last minute. Preparing a bundle isn't trivial - I just spent 6 months helping a (female) friend do one as she couldn't afford a solicitor. It's cost her at least 3 months in messing about - her ex won't respond at all, so that part is easy - and no end of heartache.

HTH.

[RRLover]

This would scare anyone from entering into an "agreeement". My last relationship i lost 6 figures without going through this process. Basically i lost the shirt off my back however, i had another shirt in the wardrobe.
Good luck & well done guys.

[Gargamel]

mr_spock said:

Not quite. Let's assume you go to mediation - this part could also be done between you, or by paying solicitors lots of money to write to each other. The process is:

• Mediation, agree what you want - mediator prepares a Memorandum of Understanding that's sent to both
• The Petitioner's solicitor prepares a draft Consent Order which is then batted between the two solicitors until agreement on the detail and wording is complete. This is NOT a doc you can write, the wording and headings are very specific and it's worth taking the time to get this right
• The draft Consent Order is signed by both parties and their solicitors
• The draft is submitted to the court. If the court is happy, it's then a legal order and can be enforced by the court. Until then, it means nothing legally. The court can decide that they want to ask questions - such as, why is the wife agreeing to sell the house when she has 2 babies, or such like. This can be answered by the solicitors (ideally with an agreed response) or the judge can ask the parties to appear in front of him. This is unusual but possible - and is much more likely if there are no solicitors and you've just used an Order writing service like Wikivorce.

So, an agreement between you and your ex has no teeth whatsoever until the court agrees it, then it's a Consent Order.

A Finance Order is when each party presents a "bundle" of docs to the court and asks the Judge to decide on the outcome. They constantly encourage the parties to come to an agreement rather than impose something, even at the last minute. Preparing a bundle isn't trivial - I just spent 6 months helping a (female) friend do one as she couldn't afford a solicitor. It's cost her at least 3 months in messing about - her ex won't respond at all, so that part is easy - and no end of heartache.

HTH.

Yes super useful, we are still in the opening phase of the actual divorce, despite being separated for more than two years, I am just trying to get the consent order as a way of protecting myself now that I am accumulating assets again, and essentially codifying the arrangement we have.

In doing so though I have created a disturbance in the force, and now all kinds of strange ideas have crossed her mind. Like I should pay for 80% of the house/mortgage for the next 9 years, but then get 30% of its value at the end....

Mostly its amicable and I think we will only involve solicitors when all the major questions are answered, so I know I am "lucky" but in reality I am "buying" that luck with hefty monthly contributions.

[MYOB]

theboss said:

MYOB said:

Thanks all for the best wishes.

I'm very pleased with the 50 50 - as suggested this ought to give me some weight in the ancillary matter now that we have shared access. Equally, the Court should pay no heed to any of the ex's spurious allegations in the ancillary matter and we should both be on equal footing. However, the ex completed Form E full of spurious claims of domestic abuse so she will attempt to use these but I remain confident the Court will no longer be interested in these and focus purely on finance matters.

I'll report back in upon the completion of this exercise.

Good luck to everyone else.

How does she claim you were abusive? Was she able to sidestep mediation? I’d have thought there needed to be some evidence eg police records for a DV allegation to hold much weight.

Will be interested to hear how things progress as I won’t be far behind you in the process, in all likelihood.

Tonker is correct. It's very easy to make false claims of domestic abuse and call the police and alleged or embellish an incident to suit their needs. Thus, with a police statement, we avoided the need to attend mediation. Evidence is not required.

It was in the news last week how people are abusing the system to get Legal Aid - which my ex subsequently discovered she was not eligible to claim due to her earnings.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-44628179

[MYOB]

mr_spock said:

Not quite...

Thanks for the clarification.

[PAUL500]

My ex simply refused to go to mediation, when this was brought up in court by my barrister, with the ex giving no reasons for such the judge stated "she does not have to go if she does not want to" !!!

Now had that matter been reversed you can guarantee he would have hauled me over the coals.

However on a later issue after she had got all the £££ she wanted then she did go, but could no longer avoid some of the concerns at hand, half way through she stood up, called me a fking tt and stormed off.

I looked at the chap sitting there in his jesus sandals and said " there you go, that is why we are in this mess" off she ran and shoved her head in the sand yet again.

Moral of my story, if you were dealing with a rational person in the first place you would not need a mediator anyway, they rarely achieve anything based on all the stories I have heard over the years.

Edited by PAUL500 on Tuesday 10th July 15:30

[mr_spock]

Mediation worked for me. The mediator (who was also a solicitor, although not acting in that capacity) was very good at focussing on issues not emotions. "Have you though about" or "do you feel that's reasonable" while also explaining how the process worked every time one of us would get worked up and forget was a real help.

She was able to explain how courts view the value of pensions, what kind of ongoing expenses were usual to agree and so on. She helped work through some confusion on the value of non-taxable benefits for example.

Well worth it if your ex isn't crazy. Maybe I was lucky.

[Robertj21a]

mr_spock said:

Mediation worked for me. The mediator (who was also a solicitor, although not acting in that capacity) was very good at focussing on issues not emotions. "Have you though about" or "do you feel that's reasonable" while also explaining how the process worked every time one of us would get worked up and forget was a real help.

She was able to explain how courts view the value of pensions, what kind of ongoing expenses were usual to agree and so on. She helped work through some confusion on the value of non-taxable benefits for example.

Well worth it if your ex isn't crazy. Maybe I was lucky.

You mean there's a different version available ?

[theboss]

MYOB said:

Tonker is correct. It's very easy to make false claims of domestic abuse and call the police and alleged or embellish an incident to suit their needs. Thus, with a police statement, we avoided the need to attend mediation. Evidence is not required.

It was in the news last week how people are abusing the system to get Legal Aid - which my ex subsequently discovered she was not eligible to claim due to her earnings.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-44628179

It still requires a degree of awareness on her part in order to orchestrate such a situation whilst she has the chance (still cohabiting for example). Whilst my ex certainly told people I was abusive, she could never try this one because when the st hit the fan we separated very abruptly and I didn’t actually lay my eyes on the woman again for many months.

[MYOB]

theboss said:

It still requires a degree of awareness on her part in order to orchestrate such a situation whilst she has the chance (still cohabiting for example). Whilst my ex certainly told people I was abusive, she could never try this one because when the st hit the fan we separated very abruptly and I didn’t actually lay my eyes on the woman again for many months.

Yes, accept this point. I accepted the usual mantra of "Don't leave the house"...and within a month, the police were called with allegations of an incident that day plus allegations of abuse throughout our 15 year marriage!