Divorce Financial Settlements

It’s definitely preferable to get a divorce financial settlement in place before the divorce is finalised. It is possible, however, to agree a financial settlement after the divorce, providing it’s done before either party remarries.

It’s important to bear in mind that both parties will be liable for any debts run up on the account. And this applies to other forms of joint borrowing or spending including credit cards. If your partner has frozen accounts and not provided you with means of living expenses, then you can apply to the Court for an interim financial order.

If your former partner is the sole owner of the family home, we would also suggest that you apply to the Land Registry to register an interest in the property. This will mean that your former partner can’t sell the house without your knowledge or consent.

This really depends on a number of factors, including:

• The contributions that each partner has made to the relationship

• Length of the marriage

• Each partner’s needs

• And the standard of living before the break up

If a couple divorce with no children involved, following a relatively short marriage, it might be fair for them both to part without needing to pay any maintenance but taking with them the assets that they brought into the relationship.

However, where a couple divorce after 30 years marriage, the husband has been working in a decent job, while the wife stayed at home bringing up the children, then a financial settlement would definitely be appropriate. A fair settlement here may be that the wife is entitled to half of the assets, including half of her husband’s pension, and a significant proportion of his income until he retires.

If your former partner refuses to pay maintenance, then you will need to ask the Court for a financial order. You will be able to apply for a financial order at any time before or after the divorce but cannot do so if you have remarried.

If a financial order is already in place, but your former partner refuses to pay it, then you can ask the Court to enforce it. Here, the Court may make an order for your former partner’s employer to pay you automatically.

We would suggest that you contact us immediately if your former partner stops paying maintenance.

If you’ve been treating your former partner’s children as your own, and part of the family, then you may well have financial obligations for them. Your former partner could ask the court to order you to pay child maintenance, and to continue paying for anything that you had paid before you divorced (school fees, club subscriptions etc).

In a lot of cases, yes you can. This is usually referred to as a “clean break” settlement. Essentially, instead of paying regular maintenance payments, you can instead agree to pay a lump sum or give assets to a particular value. Of course, if you don’t have sufficient assets under your control, this option won’t be available.

Once the court has signed off on this, neither party can return to court to ask for more maintenance in the future.

The obvious advantage here is that you will be able to make a completely clean break from your former partner. However, “clean break” settlements do not apply to the payment of maintenance of your children.

Yes, you most certainly can do, though if there are significant assets (money, investments, pensions, properties, businesses etc) or debts involved, then we would very strongly suggest that you get legal advice and support in making the settlement. We would then be able to ensure that your interests are being protected.

Our divorce solicitors would be able to advise on the structure of the agreement, make recommendations over trading off property or other assets, etc. And we’d be able to tell you if the agreement that you’ve both come to is fair or not.

Depending on the state of the relationship between both divorcing parties, we would usually suggest that you sit down and negotiate a settlement, often with a solicitor or a mediator involved. Full disclosure of all assets and financial situations is vitally important though – nothing should be hidden.

If you’re unable to agree on a settlement, and mediation doesn’t work, the court will impose a financial settlement, that may not be of liking to either of you.

You may need to resort to a Court ordered financial settlements if your former partner is being unreasonable. It’s much better to make this decision rather than allowing negotiations to drag on forever.

Technically, your pension is classed as an asset – just as your home and your investments and money in the bank account are assets. The value of your pension can therefore be taken into account when deciding on your divorce settlement.

There are a number of options that we would suggest are option to you when it comes to your pension and how it’s treated.

1. As already mentioned above, you could offset the value of the pension by transferring a lump sum to your former partner (or other assets to the same value)

2. You could arrange for a proportion of your pension to be paid to your former partner when the pension is paid to you.

3. You could also arrange for the pension to be split into two separate pension funds (this is called pension sharing).

Quite simply, you can go back to the Court to have the financial settlement changed to reflect this.

People’s lives change all the time. You may be made redundant, or you may have to take a lower (or higher) paid job. If your circumstances do change, and you’re no longer able to afford the maintenance payments to your former partner, then you can go back to Court to ask them to change the maintenance order to reflect this.