Quick description -

Sold old marital home on Friday. Ex husband had put in writing he was offering an equal share of profits. He is now refusing to transfer me the money. He also claimed the solicitors could only transfer funds to one account which was confirmed to be untrue today. What can I do? Is this theft? We were masked and I lsid into the mortgage for 8 years. He also lied about the amounts of things which I have discovered through the solicitors breakdown of costs.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks

Ps we are also in court tomorrow as I have put in for a residency order for our 2 children

Whether you contributed to the mortgage payments or not is not really relevant. In your original post, you say "ex-husband". This suggests to us that you are already divorced. If you mean "husband that you are getting divorced from" then you do have quite a few years to make a claim against assets. If you have already got divorced, then you will need to refer to the Court's written "financial order" (which tends to happen at the same time or after the decree nisi coming through but only has effect from after decree absolute). Many divorces go as far as decree nisi, then on to decree absolute (which means the marriage has wholly come to a cessation), without either party petitioning the Court for a final financial order. In the absence of a financial order you still have a number of years to claim a share of assets. You should use a solicitor who specialises in UK matrimonial legal affairs and that solicitor should be separate to your ex husband's solicitor. I suspect that you haven't used your own solicitor in this matter because he or she would have ensured that the conveyancing solicitor dealt with the funds from the house sale in a particular way.

If the ownership of the property is in joint names then it is legally half yours. You need to inform his solicitors seek some legal advice quickly. Most solicitors will give you half an hour for free.

Danielle

Firstly - do not take advice from anonymous people on a web site.

As people have sensibly suggested - get yourself a lawyer as a starting point. If you are going to court tomorrow and need advice in a hurry you may find that you have legal assistance / advice as part of your home insurance, bank account or professional / trade union membership. Suggest you try that.

There appears to be a difference between a short marriage and a longer one - five years seemed to be about the time for short and long. The rules about splitting assets changed at that point.

Blame also has no point in the splitting of finances except in exceptional circumstances - which sounded like violence but we didn't discuss that.

As part of the divorce process you both are required to make declarations as to your financial situations (I seem to remember the form was called something like Form E - very boring name) however, incorrect completion is a serious criminal offence - I suspect it is classified as "contempt of court" in the least - I don't remember the details but I do remember my lawyer being rather serious for once.

While I do not offer advice - the one thing I did notice was the lawyers were rather keen to ensure that I ensured that I took every complaint to the court - that seemed to help them rather than me or my ex and I had to fight the lawyer to undertake my instructions that I wanted my ex to have things rather than use the money to pay the lawyers.

I can't comment on children as we didn't have any.

Wish all parties the best of luck - and a level head.

Firstly, get yourself a good Lawyer.
Secondly, don't use your children as weapons in your divorce settlement as you seem to be doing.
Thirdly, we are only getting one side of this story, your husband could tell a very different tale I am sure.