Force financial evidence for SFE??

Hi all,

I''m in full time education and in receipt of student finance. For the academic year prior to this one i was married and applied with my ex husband for student finance. By the end of the academic year we we separated. I began to receive requests for my stbxh proof of earnings and obligations which i quickly responded to and was told to ignore.

Fast forward to beginning of this year i had a very substantial amount of my grants taken off me due to not supplying this evidence. Stbxh is refusing point blank to provide anything. After 3 long months of fighting for this money back i thought i had finally got somewhere, only to discover i am back to square one and they want his evidence.

Can i force him to provide it? I have explained my situation to SFE numerous times, stbxh has been arrested for domestic abuse, refuses to acknowledge divorce, or provide address etc

I dont know what else to do. I use my grants and loans to pay my rent so i am now in huge arrears and at risk of being kicked out.

Help!!

Whilst being means tested for my daughter applying for student finance I had to supply my original copy of Decree Absolute (no photo copy) every year. Sorry I cant answer about your stbx but its impossible to get blood out of a stone. Hopefully a learned wiki will be along soon with the answer.

Big Hug

Presumably you are exempt from council tax. But if you can get evidence that your stbx is getting the single person discount, Student finance will accept this as proof of separation.

They are shockingly inefficient so you probably need to escalate the complaint.

They have proof of separation via the council tax route (my deduction, not his) which was adequate enough but they are insistent they want proof of his earnings and obligations from when we were together. I dont know whether to ask him again or not. I know he will almost certainly say no and revel in the situation he has put me in and i dont really want to go down that route!

I just dont know where to turn. I''m worried now they wont return all of the overpayment which means i cant pay my rent.

You can''t force him to disclose. Even if you get disclosure via a form E for your divorce, you can''t pass this on, since it''s covered by non-disclosure. If he is doing it out of spite though, you could offer him a sweetener. For example "I''ll give you £50 if you give me the details I need". Most people''s spite has a price.

Alternatively you can bang your head against the education board''s brick wall, surely in theory since you are separated you could explain that you can''t get the details they want, because your ex refuses to provide them. But yeah, companies and government agencies can be shockingly dumb when it comes to this kind of thing. They have their red tape and trying to get around it, no matter how far off their flow chart you are, can be very hard!