Consent order question

7 years in a relationship
6 years cohabiting
married less than 2 years

My wife doesn''t wish to make claim to anything.

I am 33, she is 30, so still a long way to go till pension age.

I can''t actually put a current lump sum value on the pension. I work for a Dutch company and it gets paid into a Dutch pension fund. All I get of them is an annual statement, showing how much they will pay out monthly, should I continue paying into the fund till retirement age. A lump sum payout is not an option.

The person she is now in a relationship with and is moving in with has a decent income, from what I gather, so I assume this would be taken into account by the court.

We agree on the division of assets, I just have to wonder if the court will agree. The pension is the only real asset of value currently. The 12k savings is projected, based on my income over the next few months and expected expenditure.

Would the Consent Order be more likely to be accepted by the court if we sit down with a local solicitor acting as a mediator and make it up, so we have legal advice on hand? This, over using an online service for it.

You are both young, the marriage is short/medium length (taking into account pre marital cohabitation), your ex will be housed and you are both in agreement.

A judge might raise an eyebrow over the savings that you have/will have and may well seek to convene a hearing to ensure you both realise the ramifications of the proposed order.

In principle though, the court can make the order even with the wage inequality as a maintenance order is not appropriate in your case.

Forget going to a mediator as you already have an agreement. Mediators do not dispense advice in any event.

Going to a solicitor is only an option if you use different solicitors. Solicitors dispense advice and one solicitor cannot dispense advice to both of you e.g. s/he could not advise you that you have a good deal on one hand whilst advising your ex that she has a bad deal on the other.

Get the order drafted, both sign the order and submit it to court with your fingers crossed.

Charles

I doubt your wife will quite see it your way , unless she already has?
She could claim off your pension , and your other. assets Inc home,the fact you have paid for everything is irrelevant (sorry )
If she has agreed to what your saying,make sure you mention everything in your content order ,particularly your assets and pension , I have been seperated/divorced 21 years, and my ex has now claiming a pension sharing order in court,despite it being discussed during the hearing , though not mentioned in the order,
We both have nhs pensions which are very similar ,( or at least till 7 months ago when her night shift enhancements were stopped ) , I retired 2 years ago , she has another 6 to retirement

I would like to make a quick point in relation to the conduct of your wife and how you asked if her conduct would be taken into account by the courts because you say it was her adultery which caused the breakdown of the marriage. When it comes to the finances, the courts do not take into account acts of adultery. It is only conduct that is so bad that it would be inequitable for the courts to disregard it. For example a direct act which caused a financial loss, such as gambling. Further, there is a good chance the courts will reject the consent order. Sorry to say this, but the courts have to use statute and case law and establish fairness. I am not sure they would see your settlement as fair. Your wife may state it is fair, but right now, I am sure this is because she is feeling guilty. She may be feeling very different two years down the line.

Well,

it was a short marriage, she has a job and will be cohabiting with another man, not wanting for anything.

At best the house has 0 equity, even a chance it has 5 to 10 grand negative equity, I''d be taking on, together with the 2 grand Cc debt, so I guess we''ll just have to wait and see. She agrees to everything, even suggested most of it and I doubt very much she will change her mind.

The pension isn''t even in the UK and I''m not sure any international law is in place that would allow her to claim on it.

Mine is just going through, so I can appreciate all that you have said about your situation.

We used mediation (we were already amicable about how to divide things), and their solicitor wrote what we had agreed into a consent order which has just been submitted.

We are not claiming anything from each other either.

I am in a similar position with our house. I was originally worried about the additional pressure of a remortgage and transfer of title too. However, it was advised to each of us separately that a judge would be unlikely to agree to my stbx half remaining on the mortgage details and title for a period to suit me when we were asking for all other ties current and future to be ceased.

I can see why that is the case. It would not be fair on whatever my stbx decided to do in the future. However you look at it, a mortgage is a debt which they would need to declare if ever looking for a loan or new mortgage of any kind.

A consent order is asking for a Clean Break, so essentially you need to bite the bullet and get everything sorted for that.

I went to our current lender and explained the situation. You can get your stbx to write a letter giving authorisation for you to take over your current rate solely. Actually in the end I chose not to do this as there was a better deal on offer, even with a small fee which I had to pay. I too had to meet the new mortgage standards and I was anxious about it, but it has worked out in the end.

I think now I''m kind of glad that it''ll have been done this way because I really can move on and not have my stbx still linked to my home in any way.

Don''t be disheartened if you therefore have to sort the same out for your own situation.