Unless a court has approved a financial consent order or your ex-partner has remarried, then yes, they are entitled to claim against your money or assets. It’s a common misconception that a divorce breaks all financial ties – it doesn’t – it simply allows you both to re-marry at some point.
That said, there are things you can do to prevent them from claiming against you in the future.
How does divorce affect my finances?
To be clear, divorcing your partner does not end either of your financial commitments, and that means your former spouse can make a claim at any point in the future, with certain exceptions. The new no-fault divorce legislation, designed to help reduce acrimony and conflict in divorce proceedings, did not do anything to change the laws on separating money and assets.
There are four main factors in establishing whether or not your spouse can make a claim:
1) Did you sign a prenuptial agreement before you were married?
2) Did you sign a postnuptial agreement during your marriage?
3) Have they remarried since your divorce?
4) Did you apply for a financial consent order and have it approved by the courts?
Unless you can answer yes to some of those questions, then your former spouse will be entitled to make a claim and not only that, but they can do it many years (in some cases decades) after the end of your relationship.
The claim doesn’t necessarily stop at the money and assets you accumulated together (such as joint savings), either. They are also entitled to make a claim on future earnings or financial windfalls.
How can I protect my finances from future claims?
The key is in the four factors above. While pre- and postnuptial agreements are increasingly common they’re not something that most people enter into when they’re getting married, which leaves the options of remarriage and financial consent orders.
Without other agreements, these final two factors are the only two legal ways to prevent a former spouse from making a claim against you in the future.
The first is very simple – if your ex-partner remarries, they give up their right to claim against you.
The second is a financial order from the court, for example a clean break order. These legal agreements prevent both of you from making a claim against the other in the future, and they can be granted at any point between the Conditional Order (formerly the “Decree Nisi”) until one person remarries.
Depending on your circumstances, their rights to certain assets such as pensions may only be affected after the Final Order (“Decree Absolute”).
How long does my former spouse have to make a claim following the divorce?
Without a financial order in place, there is no time limit on how long after the divorce a claim can be made. The landmark case for setting legal precedent on this was Wyatt v Vince (2010) in which the Supreme Court ruled that a multimillionaire’s wife was able to make a claim against her ex-husband nearly 20 years after their divorce.
In this particular case the couple were married in 1981, living on benefits with no real significant assets until their separation in 1984 and eventual divorce in 1992. Following their divorce, Dale Vince went into business and founded a green energy supplier, leading to personal wealth of over £100 million.
His ex-wife, Katherine Wyatt, lodged a claim for financial support from her ex-husband in 2010, eighteen years after their divorce. The Court of Appeal initially blocked her claim, but that decision was overruled by the Supreme Court, setting the precedent that there is no time limit for former spouses to make claims against each other.
Can an ex-spouse claim assets acquired after the divorce?
The decisions here come down to balancing equality with fairness. The assets that need to be divided between a couple on their divorce – their ‘matrimonial pot’ – is usually split 50:50.
While that is indeed equal, if children were to live predominantly with one parent, that wouldn’t necessarily fair – one parent will be incurring additional expenses and have greater needs in looking after the child. In turn, this may lead to one parent/spouse receiving a smaller percentage of the joint assets.
These kind of details are usually resolved at the time of the divorce, either via solicitors and through the courts or more commonly (and successfully) now through family mediation. At the end of the divorce proceedings there will often be a financial settlement and agreement drawn up which allows for a complete break of any financial ties.
In the absence of such an order, however, it may be long after the divorce before the chapter can be fully closed.
