A mother of three, aged in her early 40’s attended our offices in 2015 to instigate divorce proceedings. The parties had been in a lengthy relationship of 26 years and had been married for 16 of those. The husband was a litigant in person and resided outside of the area.

From the outset of the case, it was clear that the husband did not wish to cooperate with proceedings and would try to make the case as difficult as possible. On a number of occasions, the Respondent had to be personally served with Court documentation to ensure that he had received the paperwork, as he would refuse to acknowledge service of the same.

Due to the difficulties with corresponding with the Respondent, it was also evident from the outset of the case that the client would have to issue financial proceedings in order to make any progress with the case, as any negotiations via correspondence proved difficult and lengthy.

There were many obstacles to overcome within these proceedings as the Respondent was evasive with his responses to financial questions, they would often delay filing paperwork with the Court and would breach many of a Court order. The Respondent would also provide a snippet of the financial paperwork that was required and would make assertions that paperwork had been filed with the Court or the client’s solicitors when in fact it had not.

In order to assist the client, the solicitor had to make many representations at Court and submit many applications in order to inform the Court of the Respondent’s lack of co-operation and consistent breach of Court orders. This results in Cost Orders being made against the Respondent which meant that they have to pay certain costs of the client’s case.

The financial proceedings last for more than 18 months and resulted in a two day final hearing whereby the parties had to give evidence before the Court in order to assist the District Judge in making their final decisions.

The Respondent would attend Court with extra evidence that they would try to submit at the last moment and would often lay blame upon the Court and/or the client’s solicitor for the length of time that the case had taken and the lack of evidence that he had previously supplied. After a length two day hearing, the case was adjourned for the Judge to give their judgement on the final settlement.

As there was a clear case for costs in this hearing but little evidence that the Respondent would pay these, it was ordered that the former matrimonial home would be transferred to the client outright and the costs not sought. There was a clean break thereafter.

Whilst the divorce and financial proceedings were underway, the client also had troubles with the Respondent and contact with the children. The Respondent would often not attend for contact and send inappropriate messages to the client and the children which would contain abusive language. When contact did take place, it was often short and unpredictable and not in the best interest of the children at that time. The Respondent decided to issue Children Act proceedings against the client and sought to have the equal shared care of the children despite not living in the area and not having consistent contact with the children.

At the outset of the Children Act proceedings, the client offered an appropriate level of contact between the children and the Respondent. This was refused. Despite Court orders being made for contact in favour of the Respondent and promoting contact, the Respondent still refused to undertake an agreed level of consistent contact and contact remained on an ad hoc basis. The Respondent sought to have the children overnight without any appropriate accommodation in the local area and indicated to the Court a desire to relocate to the area to assist with contact and building a relationship with the children. Unfortunately, despite many attempts and offers of contact, the Respondent continued to refuse contact as it was not the level that they deemed appropriate and continued to send verbally aggressive messages. It was concluded within the Children Act proceedings that a level of contact can be maintained should the Respondent wish to do so however the Respondent had to take on board the children’s wishes and feelings and their existing commitments.

The client was very happy with the outcome of both sets of proceeding. Unfortunately, the case did not conclude there. The Respondent refused to sign any paperwork to ensure that the house was successfully transferred to the client. However, due to the experience of the client’s legal team, this was pre-empted and a clause was inserted into the final order to enable the client to return the matter back to Court, to enable them to ask the Judge’s permission if the legal team could sign any paperwork upon the Respondent’s behalf. The legal team used all best endeavours including personal service of all paperwork upon the Respondent and gave sufficient time to respond however this was not answered. The Court therefore allowed the client’s legal team to signed any paperwork and the transfer of the house has now completed.