Wife able to pursue late financial claim, but delay affects outcome
Most financial remedy claims are, of course, dealt with at the time of the divorce.
But in a recent case a wife did not pursue her claim until almost 8 years after the divorce, by which time she had remarried.
The delay contributed to her receiving a smaller settlement than she might otherwise have done, and could even have resulted in her not being able to pursue the claim at all.
The case contains important lessons for anyone going through divorce.
The first lesson concerns what is known as the ‘remarriage trap’.
The law states that a spouse may not make a financial remedies application in relation to a divorce if they have since remarried. Thus, remarriage could prevent them from pursuing a claim that could obviously be worth a substantial sum of money.
As mentioned above, the wife in this case did not pursue her claim until after she had remarried. However, the law also states that if financial claims are included in the divorce application (or petition, as it was called when these parties were divorced), then that counts as making the application.
The wife had been the petitioner in the divorce, but there was a problem: her petition could not initially be found, so the court could not confirm that it had included financial claims. Thankfully, the petition was eventually found and it did include financial claims, so the wife’s application could proceed.
The second lesson relates to the delay itself.
In the case not only did the wife not pursue a financial claim at the time of the divorce, but she also remarried, started a new family and made no contribution to the first family (there were four children of the first marriage, the youngest of whom was still dependent, and living with the husband).
In the circumstances the judge was satisfied that the husband had assumed financial obligations or otherwise arranged his financial affairs in the belief that the wife was making no claim against him, and that he has done so in a way which, even if it were possible, it would not be reasonable for him to put into reverse.
And this was a factor, alongside the fact that the husband was the primary carer for the youngest child, in the judge deciding that the proceeds of sale of the former matrimonial home, the one asset of the marriage, should be divided 65.5%:34.5% in favour of the husband.
You can read the full report of the case here.
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