Financial order

I am in the process of a divorce and I have been advised by a solicitor to hold off from signing the Decree Absolute and to issue a financial order to my husband. To cut a long story short, he is a gambling addict and is in a great deal of debt. He is trying to force me to sell the family home, of which I tried to buy him out of a year ago but was refused a mortgage because a bad credit rating which he gave me to getting into arrears with a secured loan which he got out years ago, but is unfortunately in joint names. He recently won thousands of pounds in a poker competition which he kept a secret and didn''t use to pay of the arrears of the loan. My solicitor advised me that it is highly likely that he could walk away from the house with nothing as there are many other money factors where he has acted badly. My question is, what happens if he doesn''t respond to the order ie filling out the form E document, will it end up costing me thousands?

Welcome to wkiki but sorry you find yourself here.
Your situation sounds pretty horrible. I hope you have made sure he cannot access any of your assets - ie no joint bank account etc.

How long have you been married? Do you have children?

It does sound like he is not a suitable candidate for mediation and so going the court route is probably your only option. What you have to remember is that he will be answerable to the courts - and if he does not comply will be in trouble with the judge - and could even be sent to prison. It may well be that this case needs to be fast tracked to a final hearing as there won''t be much chance of him agreeing to a settlement that he does not like. Doing that would save the cost of a Directions hearing.

If he really messed about, he could find himself being made to pay your costs as a result of litigation misconduct. It is rare that this happens but it can.

As far as the mortgage goes, you can get the house signed over to you but his name may have to stay on the mortgage. You can agree to use your "best endeavours" to remove him.

Hadenoughnow

Thank you so much for your reply, you wouldn''t believe how hard it''s been to get some information about this! I was married for almost eleven years before the separation and I have one child who is twenty, she wants nothing more to do with him, which is totally understandable. I think I am going to go ahead with the financial order, it seems like my only option as I think it''s the only way that he will realise I am serious about the situation. I cannot see him responding to this as, as you know you have to complete a form E where you have to show details of your finances over the last twelve months, I can''t see how he will do this without lying as he is in so much debt. The solicitor that I saw sent his solicitor a letter suggesting a full disclosure on both parties and suggested that we both fill this form in, as you can imagine there was no response from him. My solicitor was willing to act for me but there is no way that I could afford to use her so it it something that I am trying to do alone. Now I have had your reply I feel more confident about the situation.

thank you