The first and most obvious piece of advice is to close any joint accounts to prevent the other party from withdrawing all funds in the account or, worse still, from running up an overdraft, for which you will be jointly liable. Hopefully, the accounts can be closed by agreement, with the parties agreeing the division of any funds in the account. If agreement cannot be reached, you will need to get in touch with the bank. Most banks will not close joint accounts without the agreement of both parties but they
will usually freeze the account, thereby preventing any further withdrawals.
Other jointly owned assets will also need to be dealt with, such as joint life policies. You will need to work out whether the policy will be kept and, if so, who will pay the premiums. The policy may be transferred (assigned) into the sole name of one party or it may be cashed in and the proceeds divided between the parties. There are two ways of cashing in an endowment policy: surrendering it to the insurance company (provided the policy has been running for long enough to have acquired a surrender value) or selling it to a company that buys endowment policies. Not all policies can be sold, but if they can they will usually realise more than surrendering the policy – shop around for the best deal.
Similarly, joint debts will need to be dealt with, although here there is much less room for manoeuvre, as creditors will not normally be prepared to release one of two joint debtors. You will therefore need to agree who will be responsible for the debt and ensure that the other party cannot increase it without your consent. If the debt was incurred primarily for joint purposes, it will be treated as a debt of the marriage and taken into account in any financial settlement.
If you vacate the matrimonial home on a permanent basis, then you can have all bills relating to the property transferred to the party remaining in the property, unless you agree to continue paying, or contributing towards, the bills. Although, even where you are contributing it is still advisable to transfer the bill to prevent yourself from being liable for the full amount if the other party doesn’t pay. The bills to transfer will include council tax, gas, electricity and telephone. It is not usually necessary to obtain the agreement of the party remaining in the property – just inform
the local authority or utility company that you have vacated the property and they should transfer the bill to the other party.
If the matrimonial home is in joint names, then it is most likely owned by you and your spouse as joint tenants, in equal shares. This means that if either of you were to die then the ownership of the whole property will pass automatically to the survivor. Obviously, you may wish to change this. You can do so simply by serving a notice of severance on the other party. You do not need the agreement of the other party, or even an acknowledgement by them that they have received the notice, although you should request the Land Registry to record the change in the way the property is owned. The effect of the notice is to change the ownership to tenants in common, which means that if either party were to die then that party’s share in the property would pass into his or her estate and be dealt with under the terms of their Will. Obviously, therefore, you should also make a Will, or a new Will, when you serve the notice to ensure (so far as possible) that your share goes to whoever you want it to go to (if you do not make a Will then your share would probably still go to your spouse under the laws of intestacy, until such time as the marriage is dissolved). Note that severing the joint tenancy does not alter the size of each party’s share in the property (that remains to be agreed or determined by the court) and that therefore the court could make an order that frustrates your intentions regarding your share. Note also that severing the joint tenancy can be a double-edged sword, as your spouse may die before the marriage is dissolved and you would not then automatically acquire their share in the property.
the Land Registry. This will prevent your spouse from selling or mortgaging the property without reference to you. Registering a home rights notice is a simple procedure – you just have to complete form HR1 (available on the Land Registry’s website, www.landregistry.gov.uk) and send it to your local Land Registry. There is no fee to pay but note that the Land Registry will inform your spouse that the notice has been registered. Note also that the notice expires when the divorce is finalised – it is therefore essential, where the property is owned by your spouse, to resolve the issue of your interest in the property before the divorce is finalised.
So far as the contents of the matrimonial home are concerned, my advice is to agree their division if at all possible. Unless you own antique furniture or other items of value such as paintings, the current, second-hand value of the entire contents is likely to be minimal. It may have cost several thousand pounds or more to purchase the contents originally, but their current second-hand value is the value that the court will use. Accordingly, you will not want to spend a substantial sum on legal costs arguing over the division of the contents. Again, equal division is the starting point (save for personal possessions, such as clothes, which each party should keep), although there will be other considerations, in particular if one party is to have any children living with them then their needs will obviously be greater. If you are not able to agree the division of the contents with your spouse, then my view is that all of the contents should remain in the matrimonial home until agreement is reached as to its division or the court has decided the matter. However, if your spouse starts removing items without your consent then you may be left with no alternative but to do likewise, especially in respect of items that you would like to keep or items that may be liquidated by your spouse.