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My parents (Dad 61, Mum 55 (I'm nearly 30 with a slightly younger sister)) are trying to finish getting divorced after a 30-odd year marriage; dad has just applied for ancillary relief, and since mum called in floods of tears this evening, not wanting to deal with it, I've tried to suggest that she gets it over and done with. They've been talking about it for years and (mutually I think) trying to avoid the difficult financial settlement.
They split up in about 99/00 after various financial troubles forced them to sell the family home. Mum had been in an increasingly open relationship with someone else for a couple of years after years of financial decline, in the family business first, and then in various further failed businesses and bad partnerships. The debts mounted up, they sold the house, got rid of most of them and traded down.
However they hadn't quite cleared everything - mum was left with an overdraft of a few thousand pounds on a business which dad continually promised to clear, until it was passed to a county court and blackened both their credit ratings. Mum had also started a further couple of businesses in the last few year (the second of which only shut down this year), partly in an effort to clear the original debts, and has since run up some further uncleared debts there which are a current concern for her.
In the mean time, Dad moved away from their home town, first to London and then abroad to pursue other work. Mum lived in the new house alone for a few years, but continuing debts have recently forced her to rent it out for the last couple of years, and she lives with her mother now. Dad lives with his girlfriend abroad, so they are currently both effectively supported by someone else.
The hard bit - early 2007, my father's mother died and left an estate worth nigh-on £1m - half to my father's sister, in cash as far as I'm aware, and half to a trust fund for my father's benefit. Now I'm unclear as to the exact purpose of this trust, but I think it was intended by my grandmother to either ensure that my mother wasn't able to have a share of the cash, or to ensure my dad couldn't put it into ill-advised business ventures. Unfortunately I don't know exactly, technically it's none of my business, and my father either doesn't know, isn't clear, or isn't being very straight with me. He clearly doesn't have direct access at the moment, and I'm not sure under what conditions he could have.
I could have this completely wrong in different ways, but I'm pretty certain my aunt only had half, and there is half in a trust.
So... this is probably progressing to court since my father is paying solicitors to do so (from what resources I don't know, but he's staying abroad during the process), but my mother doesn't have any ready cash to pay a solicitor and will probably have to represent herself.
In trying to advise mum, who would really like the whole thing to go away, I have given myself a crash course in Ancillary Relief, Form E and so on, and have suggested that rather than burying her head, she start pulling together concrete details about their finances, past debts, house value, pensions and so on.
Mum wants to keep the status quo; i.e. the house, and income from it, based on the fact of my father's part-realised inheritance. My father thinks he should have half the house, half the past income from it, etc. and his inheritance shouldn't come into it. Mum thinks he is also being less than forthcoming about pension funds and the reality of the debt that she had to deal with.
So the main question about all of this is - since my father's trust fund appeared well after the split, though before the decree nisi was granted last year, would it get taken into account in a court? And what value is assigned to a trust in a split if the beneficiary cannot have direct access to its cash?
My impression from Form E and various general guides on English divorce, that the sums for ancilliary relief are based on the present day, and joint resources available to both parties at the time of the relief, not years beforehand. I also understood that the split is based on children first (non-issue), the needs of the two parties, and reinstatement of previous lifestyle. Thankfully, neither parent has any foreseeable / current health problems. From those principles, it would seem there is enough in the pot including my father's trust to cater for his needs; even if he is not able to spend it directly I suspect it is for nobody else's benefit. Therefore the only tangible asset that can be liquidated, the house, would go to my mother first.
The reason I think this is that I don't see how, if the house were sold and split, my mother would have any semblance of previous lifestyle, whereas, on the assumption that the trust will cater for my father directly or indirectly, he is already taken care of.
This isn't made any easier by my father (apparently...) refusing to discuss it with my mother directly, preferring to send solicitors letters instead.
So I am reluctantly prearing to place myself in the middle and to try to mediate. I want the split to be fair under law, despite my mother's lack of representation. I also don't want my dad to lose more of his inheritance than he expected by proceeding with a mistaken impression of what will happen; i.e. I'm not sure whether his solicitors know everything they ought to about the joint finances, or indeed whether, without close supervision by my father, thinking they can get away with partial declarations of resource or other shenannigans.
Anyhow, first thing is to ask my aunt straight about the trust fund and its conditions, as I've not really got a straight answer out of dad yet and it's the biggest question mark over the whole thing. He alternates between despair at never seeing the money when talking to me, and bullishness when dealing with mum via the solicitors.
Hard work all round - I'm not sure what I'm asking, other than hoping some of the story is similar to someone else's, and to see if someone can share some advice for mum, dad or me.
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