Financial Consent order agreed but not signed...

Long story short, I'm buying my ex out of the FMH, we have had an FDR and we roughly agreed a deal, after a few more weeks negotiations we agreed an order, however it has been a few months and he has not signed the order, nor made any additional changes, my solicitor has requested the signed order twice now, the second time stating if it is not signed by the end of this week he will be filing a cause for action in court.

Has anyone experienced this and what was the outcome, he has no genuine reason not to sign this order and has protracted every single hearing.

Any advice gratefully accepted!

Welcome to Wikivorce. Up until the end of a final hearing when the judge makes a decision on your finances, the only way you can get settlement is by consent.

If he has not consented by signing the order for submission to the court, then you cannot proceed with a Consent Order.

The next step would be an application for a notice to show cause (for him to explain why he has not signed) and/ or a Final Hearing. If you did not have a final agreement at FDR was a date set for Final Hearing?

Have you checked whether there has been any big change in his circumstances?

If there is no good reason for him not signing, it may be worth warning that you will be making an application for costs against him.

If there is a good reason, you may have to revisit the settlement or consider going to Final Hearing for the judge to decide how things should be sorted out.

Hadenoughnow

Thank you I'm thinking of taking a whole section out now to revert back to court for any breaches rather than a forced sale of the house if not completed by a certain date.

I don't know why that was even added when he is the one delaying the transfer, it seems my child and I would get penalised for his breach.

Can I suggest reading back on Hadenoughnow's comments, you don't have any order that has been breached. You don't yet have a court order. So you can't say your ex has breached anything.

The issue is whether you have an agreement, hence the suggestion to go back to court for notice to show cause/and or whether everything is up for grabs and negotiation is ongoing with a final hearing coming up. It's more expense for you with Solicitor's costs so you need to clear.......do you want the agreement that you believe has been reached....your solicitor will advice you whether it is likely with the terms that a court may say yes an agreement has been reached between you and uphold that on a potential notice to show cause. Depends on what is written down and agreed and no one can advice on that without the paperwork.

Deborah