Ancillary Relief Proceedings and Terminal Illness

Hi there,

My partner has a terminal illness and sadly has become very ill indeed. Too ill to instruct or deal with her divorce, of which most I have managed for her in the background to enjoy what little time we may have left.

She applied for her decree absolute as a result of her illness which was granted recently and this was something that really cheered her up before her sudden and drastic downturn.

The first court date ancillary settlement has been made, but she will not be able to attend and I doubt sadly she may not even live that long.

Where does this leave divorce proceedings?

Her Solicitor said she could not proceed under the circumstances - it is not our priority at any rate - but if my partner is sick and misses the first hearing are there any issues that may arise? Would they simply adjourn? Would we not have to notify the court?? Our solicitor said no to worry about it and that she cannot be instructed without permission from my partner (I thought in these circumstances the solicitor should be able to appoint an appropriate person -i.e. me, her partner to instruct). The financial settlement really doesn't matter to us now as it will not help us and we can survive financially, but it would be good to know there is no caveat that we are not filling out Form E and exchanging as instructed by the courts. Really it is the last thing we need to be bothered with right now, just do not want to incur any difficulty down the line because of it.

Could proceedings still actually take place? She has served a severance of tenancy on her matrimonial home and has made a will that is very important to her. There is no chance that her half of her house could be threatened in any way is there?

I just want to make sure everything is as she wishes, so hopefully someone can help explain as the solicitor hasn't exactly explained very well and each email bumps up the costs.

Thanks,

T

If her solicitor feels he is unable to act as she is incapable of instructing him maybe her affairs would be better handled by the official solicitor.

Well in a situation like this I am surprised the parties are pursuing a court ­base­d action at all.

She is terminally ill and there is a marital pot. It neither of these are in dispute then there must be a solution that resolves the matter.

Are there children involved?

Hi there and thanks for the replies.

We went to mediation to try and sort things out as quickly and amicably as possible, as one does in these circumstances. This was shortly after she came out of hospital and was doing ok and a lot better. Her - now thankfully - ex husband decided it was not equitable for her to have her pensions loss (approx £170K) as he felt it inequitable due to her limited life expectancy. We offered, and kept offering differnt solutions, making more and more concessions, but it was clear he was like a rabbit caught in the headlights and was unable to negotiate. Or unwilling to.

We ended up going through solicitors due to his constant disputes and time wasting. He didn't seem to either accept or realise that she would have any claim to any of his pension pot whatsoever.

There were and are more important things in life to focus on though, so we put it in the hands of the solicitor as it was clear that he could not come to any decision within a reasonable time limit. He just talked around and around, all mouth but no action. Very sad that someone can be so short sighted in these situations; a lost, cruel poor, lonely soul, which forever he will be!

Fortunately this burden was lifted by letting it go and handing over to the solicitor and we have been just enjoying life until she has sadly got very ill over the past couple of weeks. At least we knew there was a time limit involved by going through the courts, as he kept stringing things out. It was better than going round in circles with her ex husband and his solitary half a brain cell, even though the time issues involved with he prognosis of 2 years was an obviously pressing issue.

So that's life! But we are, and have been enjoying the important things in life, and he can keep his money and live out his lonely retirement with his 2 failed marriages and angry family behind him.

To answer the question re: children, is yes they do have 2 daughters together who are both financially independent and well over 18. Obviously they are as unimpressed with the situation as most people I discus this with are.

But not amount of money is going to help now as it could have done 6 months ago when we began mediation. The time has past. I helped to represent her in the mediation sessions as she was still unwell because she really wanted to get things sorted and we made every effort to get it sorted nicely and swiftly. We just had to gave up after 4 gruelling mediation sessions having got nowhere and hearing her ex husband talk about her shortened life expectancy and how he has 'extreme longivity' in his family and that the long term view should overshadow the short, etc etc which was far, far too much than my partner should have ever had to have dealt with or been put through. It was at that point I pulled the plug.

We did the right thing at the right time looking back and her absolute came through recently which was closure enough. She was well enough to enjoy the fact it had come through at the time too, which was great.

I just don't know what would happen if the first hearing date comes and goes without her turning up/instruct and want to make sure that no major issue will arise from it.

I haven't the energy to deal with this as we are facing the end of her life now. She just needs looking after now, it would b fruitless to pursue things now.

Thanks for the Official Solicitor suggestion, I'll take a look at that shortly just to keep abreast of thing.
Sad she will not get what she deserves and a swift and decent settlement as it will sadly be her daughters inheritance that will suffer as a result,(he has taken money from his children before, so nothing new).

For someone who claims to be a Buddhist (and takes it very seriously), he sure hasn't considered 'attachment' and 'karma' very much. Oh well, maybe that's why it is what it is.

Might give another solicitor a call to check up the situation if I get a moment, as I've not been overly impressed by her performance to be honest. She didn't suggest the official solicitor or any solution.

I have to focus on my partner now, but in the times when she is resting, it's comforting to know I am doing something extra for her, her daughters and grandchildren, if I can.

Thanks again for your responses and apologies for my lengthy one! Most appreciated!

Cheers

T

You clearly have a lot of animosity against her ex-husband which would be completely unhelpful in any negotiations, in truth you are too close to the action to be ­object­ive.

The focus should have been on an interim settlement to free up some immediate cash for your partner if it would have improved her life quality (ie a nice vacation etc etc)

The second would have been to agree some amount of money to pass to the children upon her death from the marital pot, keeping in min if he is retired or will soon that he needs to fund himself as children these days don't expect to fund their parents in old age.

And the rest, well the fruits of the marriage belong to the marriage and if one party is likely to outsurvive the other it would only seem fair that that is where the money should have gone. In this case, to him, because she can't take it with her.

Yep, we tried all of that, thanks.

What you suggested was more or less what we focussed on and everything was very civilised etc and was largely ­object­ive with good council from a supporting solicitor.

Obviously you were not there, so you've only got my previous post to go on - but yes, the ­object­ivity was slowly disappearing and realised at one point and that was another deciding factor in taking it out of the mediation arena and placing it into the hands of solicitors who knew what they were talking about - and more importantly to remove the stress from our lives - so we could enjoy life and what time we have had together- which is what thankfully we did.

An interim payment might have been helpful at the time, (more money is better than some right?), but since we were and are financially ok and he kept dragging his heels, using blatant stalling and bluffing tactics, it also became evident he was in a bizarre state of emotional turmoil (even though she waited 2 years to divorce him so he would 'get used to the idea'), so if anything it was more his ­object­ivity that was the problem. Just to add to that even the mediator suggested the very few ideas he did put forward were not suitable for various practical reasons. So yeah, sure, there is an animosity that has developed over a period of time, but we took it to the solicitor to avoid any compromise due to those issues. Which worked pretty well!

Well.. at the end of the day I took his wife "away from the misery", in her own words, and she's got her divorce absoulte, so as I previously mentioned - that's certainly enough! There is plenty more important in life than money - and from our perspective we don't need actually need the money.

SO my question still remains unanswered....