Fingers Crossed

I am 57, and after 40 years of marriage, the end is near.
I had my FA last week, and this was a bit of an anti climax, as nothing seemed to move on.

My stbx had nothing when we married 40 years ago, I was 17 and he was 27..... Four children later and a lot of hard work and property buying, with me working for him all my married life, he put all the property in trust few years ago, with his family(overseas) being the beneficiaries.

Now as a Clean Break settlement,I have only asked for the marital home (which I discovered only last week, is in his sole name)and a reasonable cash sum.......however he has stated he owns nothing and it is up to me to prove that is not the case.
He managed to get public funding as he claims his state pension is his only income, and I did not,as I am working full time, so my situation is pretty dire. I have now had to place a caution on the marital home to stop him from selling it and making me homeless.

The total of all the property in question is almost a million pounds worth.

Today I got a date for the FDR and what has thrown me today was a letter setting out the DJ order from the FA requesting that I come up with Estate Agents details of alternative accommodation.......so after 30 years of living in this house,it seems like I may lose it.
Fingers crossed the DJ will believe me and not him..!!

Hi, he owns the marital home for a start which you are entitled to 50% of, as regards the other properties as you both worked on them and bought them while you were married these will be taken into account.
you can tell the court that he started hiding marital assets a few years ago by giving them to relatives, if they were in either sole or joint names there will be a record at the land registry and solicitors if you know who they were.
as you know the address's of these properties you can ask the court to order him to prove that these were sold and prove where the money went, if he just transferred them to his relatives the court could even tell him to put them back in his or joint names, where they bought for cash or mortgage as the payments for them will show on his bank statements, these you can ask for, i asked for the last 5 years on my divorce, which the judge granted.
I hope this helps allieviate some of you worries.
kind regards
dawn

Hi Dawn,

Thank you very much for this reply, it is really helpful.

All the 3 business properties were bought outright with no mortgages and in his sole name.
They remained in his sole name for about 10 years, then in 1994 he transferred them to a trust giving himself just a 1% share, and his 3 brothers shares totalling 99%.

The marital home (not in the trust) was the only property with a mortgage, which, after selling one of the other properties last year, he cleared the mortgage of the marital home.
The balance left was then deposited in a bank account in the Far East.

He has all the documents relating to these transactions, and they are all legal documents. The question is why did he decide to give 99% of his assets away..... ?

I have to prove to the court that he was trying to hide these assets. He claims that his family helped him to buy these properties, but I know that is not the case.

My sol told me very early on that by rights he should be handing me a cheque for half a million ..... instead of which the reality is I will get just half the equity in the marital home, which will just about clear my debt and leave me homeless.

I am angry because my ex did ask me to settle 'out of court' and said he would give me what I wanted if I stopped the legal proceedings. He said that he couldn't pay me anything through the court... cos he is not supposed to have anything. I stopped the legal action twice and he never came up with any settlement. Consequently the battle is now 2 years old.

I am angry that he has got away with so much, I wouldn't have worked for him for 30 years with no pay, if I had known that I or our 4 children were not going to benefit in anyway.

Tricia

Hi Tricia, i don't know much at all about the finance side of divorce but i just wanted to offer my sympathy & welcome you to Wikki, i'm sure you will get lots of replies so keep looking in here. Personally though i thought that everything was divided 50/50 on divorce? I had no children to my stbx yet i'm told i'm entitled to half the matrimonial home even though he never put my name on it despite buying it together. Hope it all comes right for you,
Cindygirl