Do I go halves or make him pay it all?

Hi. I am the applicant in a divorce and have gone on unreasonable behaviour. My solictor says I can make him pay for it all and I have pushed that. My husband obviously has refused to and it will go to the judge. My solictor says the judge will rule in my favour, but my husband has no money and will refuse to pay, meaning I will have to pay extra court costs to enforce it. What should I do? He owes me money which he has agreed to pay, but I cant see him paying THAT and the divorce fee, esp as he wanted to go halves on an online divorce. If I make him pay and he refuses, there will be extra court costs and I dont want to be stuck with that on top of it all. any advice?

Your solicitor''s advice is correct. But here you come across the perennial problem - getting a judgment is usually comparatively easy. How you enforce it is something else. You cannot get blood out of a stone.

If, by some chance, you were ordered to pay him something as part of the divorce, you could offeset your costs against that.

LMM

Thanks for your reply. What do you mean by me paying him to offset my costs?

I think you have misunderstood.

All right, let''s suppose that you have a judgment in your favour for say £500 or whatever it is. He does not pay.

You then have to consider how to enforce payment. The answer to this question depends on his circumstances.

If for example he has a regular income you may be able to get an order for payment out of his wages. If he has money in the bank you may be able to get at that. If he has no money at all, then you can''ty get blood out of a stone.

But if for example you owe me £1000 and I owe you £300, you can knock the £300 off what you owe me.

So what I''m saying is that if, say, in the divorce settlement, you have to pay him a certain sum of money you mjay be able to deduct your costs from that.

LMM

Ah I see - thanks for this. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I dont owe him anything. But I have decided to carry on with trying to enforce costs on him and the court costs are pnly £60 if he fails, so not too bad

You may not "owe" him anything but presumably there is some sort of matrimonial pot to split?

Say for example there is £1000 in savings in your name and you are ordered to split it 50/50 you wouldn''t have to give him the full £500 as you would be able to deduct the court costs first.

You need to post more details on both your assets, incomes, ages etc for someone to advise on how the matrimonial pot may get split.

If he had originally agreed to go halves it make be quicker, cheaper and less hassle to go with that but obviously it is up to you.

He was useless with money, very rarely had a job and we had separate bank accounts. As far as I am aware, my solicitor said he can''t touch my savings as they were mine and he never contributed. He has a house in his name only with no mortgage, which I am not entitled to, other than about £2,000 in household improvements which ad value to the house. I am able to claim that back.
Does that make things any clearer?

Thanks