Available in some states, a legal separation is similar to a divorce, except no divorce judgment is granted that ends the marriage. In response to a complaint for legal separation or separate support, the court may provide remedies relating to property (in some states) and support. Generally, a complaint for divorce or annulment is necessary before a court orders a final property division. Also called judicial separation.
Question: Help with divorce petition? My partner has received a Petition for Divorce from his ex wife, she cheated on him just after 1 year of marriage, so they separated and about 2 years later we moved in together, it is now 5 years since their separation, they had no children. I have 2 children that both myself and my partner support although he isn't their birth dad. Anyway she is still with the guy that she committed adultery with and made it clear she wanted a divorce at no cost to my partner, the petition has come through and it seems like she is going to try and get financial gain from my partner. They already sold the house when separated and the proceeds were split 50/50 as were any items from the house, if anything my partner came away worse off with about £15,000 of debts but the problem was he had the loan through a family member with no legal contract. With that debt and the fact that my partner's self employed business failed last year and he was out of work for a while and had to take a 50% paycut when accepting a full time employed job we are now £35,000 in debt as a couple, unfortunately the legalaid scheme only takes income into account so we don't qualify for help and we don't know what to do as havn't got any money to pay for a solicitor, we really don't want to add to our £35K debt ... we have struggled so much in the last year not to go bankrupt and to keep our house and so far we have succeeded and have been slowly paying back our debts ... its now such a kick in the teeth that this has come up and we don't know what to do. We don't understand what the petition means so any advice on it would be helpful, he is supposed to have it signed and back at the courts by the weekend. The section we are concerned about is the 'Prayer' it states under 'Ancillary Relief' for the petitioner (his ex) - an order for maintenance pending suit - a periodical payments order - a secured provision order - a lump sum order - a property adjustment order - an order under section 24B, 25B or 25C of the Act of 1973 (pension sharing/attachment order) I've been told by others that have had divorces that if she accepted everything had been finalised financially it would be stated in the petition. So is she lying to us in person and does this divorce look like she is looking for money from us?
There was no contract drawn up at time of separation, although I did see a letter after they sold the house from the solicitors saying the proceeds from the sale money had been split in final settlement so I'm praying we can get a copy from the solicitors as I've searched for it and can't locate it (we've moved house since I saw it) They never planned to have children so she worked full time whilst they were married, so just hoping there isn't much she can claim for with those circumstances. Will they take our debts into consideration whilst deciding whether to award her with anything? Surely if its likely to send us bankrupt and leave us & 2 children homeless it wouldn't be in the courts interest to award her anything.
Answer: Yes she is after money and support. I would find some way to scrape up money for a lawyer, sorry a solicitor.
