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Mahie Abey, Family Solicitor |
If you can’t reach agreement over how to split the finances
between you (and see my earlier post for ways in which to do this, all of
which are preferable to ending up in Court), then you may have to resort to
going to Court. If that happens, the Court will help you and your ex-partner to
reach a settlement or, if that is not possible, the Judge will ultimately
impose a settlement on you both.
Form A is used to ‘issue Financial Remedy Proceedings’:
that means it’s the form you need to start proceedings over splitting your
finances in Court.
If you are the Petitioner in the
divorce proceedings leave them.
Since you are filling in this
form, you are the Applicant for the financial proceedings, and your ex-partner
is the Respondent. It does not matter which of you is the Petitioner or
Respondent in the divorce.
2.
Enter the name of the Court where the divorce
proceedings have been issued.
3.
Enter your case number, which will be on one of the
divorce forms you’ve had back from the Court.
4.
Enter your full name here (including middle names).
5.
Enter your your
ex-partner’s full name here (including middle names).
6.
Cross out these words in brackets. (We have assumed
that your ex-partner is also unrepresented by a solicitor.)
7.
Enter your ex-partner’s full address, including the postcode.
How you complete these boxes
depends on which of you is the Petitioner or the Respondent in the
Divorce.
8.
If you are the Respondent in the divorce then you
should tick the first box.
9.
If you are the Petitioner in the divorce, you should
tick the second box (you are ‘proceeding with an application’ rather than
‘applying’ because you have already made an application within the Divorce Petition,
even though you may not have realised it!).
10. If
you are applying to vary an existing Maintenance Order, you should tick the
third box.
I’ve laid out below what each of
these orders means:
11. Maintenance pending suit: a short term maintenance
order, made before matters are resolved to deal with the interim position (i.e.
your ex-partner providing you with some income now whilst you wait for your
financial agreement to be finalised).
You will need
to make a decision though on whether you want to ask the Court to deal with the
interim position as well (i.e. to apply for income in the meantime before the
financial proceedings are resolved).
If you do,
then you should tick the first box
(11) . I will deal with what happens, and what else you need to
do, in a Maintenance Pending Suit application in a later post.
If you don’t
need the Court to deal with the immediate situation, then leave this box
unticked.
12. Secured provision order: maintenance
secured against an asset – for example if it is secured against a property, and
the payer defaults (stops paying) you can force the sale of the property to
meet the arrears.
13. Lump sum order: payment of a lump sum
to you.
14. Property adjustment order: the transfer
of a property to you; if you tick this you’ll also need to give the property
address in the box below.
15. Periodic payments order: this is
maintenance.
16. Pension sharing order: the division of a
pension.
17. Pension attachment order: the diversion
of pension income to you.
18. Pension compensation order: the division
of a pension that is in the Pension Protection Fund.
19. Pension compensation attachment order: the
diversion of income from a pension that is in the Pension Protection Fund.
It may be that you already know
which Orders you wish to apply for – in which case tick the ones that apply.
However in most cases you won’t
know. The safest thing to do is to tick all the remaining boxes (remembering to
enter the property address below (14) if you tick this one).
This series of boxes above are
rarely ticked. They relate to
circumstances where child maintenance is sought via the Court. In the majority of situations the Court does
not have jurisdiction to make an Order for child maintenance unless the parties
agree. It is usually the Child Support
Agency or CMEC that makes an order, as they now have the jurisdiction (i.e.
power to do so).
But if one of the situations
listed here does apply to you then tick the relevant box.
I would
recommend that you do attend a MIAMS and try mediation before you issue a Court
application as if you have not done so, the Court is likely to adjourn (i.e.
postpone) the application at the First Directions Appointment (the first Court
hearing) to enable you to do so, which will just delay the whole process.
21. Sign
the form, deleting the words in brackets underneath the box.
22. Date
the form.
My next post will show you what
you need to do with your now completed Form A.