Hello All,
Would like some pointers and shared experience advice please. Titled 1 Year into it and right back at the start!
My situation is; after 20 years of Marriage, the last 5 have been rather difficult, breakdown of communication, rowing, stress etc. About 6 years ago I gave up my career to help my STBX get back in hers and became a stay at home father to help get children (2 - now 21 and almost 18) through their GCSE’s and into and through University. We agreed that separation would be best, and we would stay together and mediate our finances and go to court and walk away. Sadly that did not work.
After weaponising the children, my parents and some of our friends, I was forced out of my own house, our joint savings were cleared out. A protection order put on the house and I would have been homeless but for very good friend support. OK I thought, we can still get a mediated agreement. I was then hit with a solicitors letter and after some great help from the Citizens Advice Bureau tooled up with my solicitors. As we started our FormE4’s it was raised that we should try and mediate the financials of the home and ourselves. Which I agreed to. We had agreed that personal items (Engagement ring, jewellery etc) would be left out however on the first pass of our FE4’s I noticed some inaccuracies with the STBX’s and raised that as and issues, my team when back to her team and low and behold she had ‘forgotten’ to mention them (Around £120K). We started the divorce process in Aug 2022 and by Jan23, we were ready to start
mediation.
My main assets are pension and house (still in my single name), as all savings were cleared out by her, without notifying me, however during the mediation she constantly ‘lost it’ and I would be blamed for just about everything in the end we had to do ‘shuttle mediation’. We came to a sticking point on the valuation of the house, she had 6 valuations and submitted 2 for the
form E4 and for the mediation and yes they were the lowest! My valuations (and her remaining 4) all were within about £30K of each other £570 - £600K, as we could not agree the mediator suggested to have an RICS ‘red book’ valuation done and that has come in even lower than her original submission of £475K to £450K. (I do think there may have been a conflict of interest as her legal business I think does business with the RICS that was used). We are fortunate that the area we live in is desirable for schools, commuting, road, rail and airport, London is about 28KM away and security and similar properties have all sold around my agents prices and even more(A quick look at properties sold put the selling value, even in the down turn at around ,y numbers). Within the mediation, she has listed my personal items and left out hers (which I had mostly brought), her delay’s involved in her general responses – me done within 48Hrs hers about 2 weeks+ and always lead to more ‘sessions’. I have decided to cease the mediation and go direct with the solicitors, as I think I will have to end up doing that anyway, so in the long term I hope I should save some money. To do this I have to crystalise some of my pension as well as having some money to live on. All through the divorce and mediation, I have maintained a level of polite courtesy and accurate numbers, facts and dates (as speaking with friends who have been down this path best to be upfront and honest).
What I would be interested in are shared experiences, advice and pointers. Like most on here this is a very painful path to walk and I really don’t want to burden my friends, however I am now at a point where I think I am going to have to ‘toughen up’ and try and get this closed ASAP so one can move on with my life and reading some of the pointers here I think could help.
Many thanks in advance
Hcar
