ex wife & irresponsible use of settlement money

Advice please!

My Question:

Does an ex spouse have a responsibility to use any divorce money settlement/lump-sum payment/monthly maintenance sensibly? Would a court take note of how any money given so far has been used?

Quick background summary:

Divorced but no Clean Break sought as agreed between us. I gave her all equity in house (50k) and she signed house over to me as I wanted to stay. Also I pay 25k a year school fee's and 14k a year child maintenance. She took family car worth £12k and all family furniture too so not gone without. We have 2 children.

She now wants second bite at cherry. We're currently exchanging form E's.

Since moving in with her new partner she put 25k into his house but says she has no 'legal interest in it' and has frittered the remaining 25k away within 4 months! Since seeing her bank statements I can also see she frittering away the maintenance money each month, not on my children as I hoped it would be spent on.

Hello Upgrade

Quick question you are divorced i assume with a Consent Order (you say no clean break) but without ending AR?, have you had FDR yet.

dukey

Divorced with consent order.
She is petitioning me for:
-a secured provision order
-a property adjustment order
-a periodical payments order
-a lump sum order
-a pension sharing order

What is FDR?

It sounds as though your financial settlement wasn't legally binding which leaves the path open for your ex wife to claim. Applying for everything above is normal practice to keep all options open.

At the First Appointment the relevant issues in dispute are identified; FDR is Financial Dispute Resolution aimed at helping the parties reach agreement and and if no agreement can be reached the matter progresses to a Final Hearing, where the issues are considered in depth and a Court order made.

Once there is a legal binding settlement in place no future claims can be made on capital, and an existing order for periodic payments can usually only be varied if there is a change of circumstances. Unfortunately there is no onus for an ex spouse to use resources sensibly, in our case my ex had 75% of the matrimonial assets and was made bankrupt when HMRC caught up with his tax avoidance. Grrr...

However, in North v North when the wife revisited periodical payments the fact she had 'largely made her own bed' was one consideration. See;

www.familylawweek.co.uk/library.asp?i=3102