Over the years, my colleagues and I have posted various articles warning of the risks for a spouse that arises when the marriage is ended by a divorce, but where there has been no formal Court ordered financial clean break.
Our previous articles entitled Fool if you think it’s over again… – Greene & Greene and more recently Won’t get fooled again? – Greene & Greene touch upon the cautionary tales of Vince -v-Wyatt, and more latterly the case of HAT -v- LAT.
The title of this article is “Fools Gold”, and a part of me feels that may be on reflection a tad harsh, because in the recent case of LIN -v- PAR [2025] EWFC401, the ex-wife was awarded nothing in respect of her financial remedies claim.
On reflection that was entirely foreseeable bearing in mind that after a nine year childless marriage, they had separated in 2000, and had reached an agreement in 2001, which they both assumed (incorrectly) had been converted into a Court Order, and had therefore been left undisturbed for over twenty years.
It was not until the wife was manipulated by an unscrupulous third party into believing that her ex-husband had been culpable of non-disclosure did she issue Financial Remedy Proceedings, which ultimately came to be dismissed by Mr Justice Peel on 21st November 2025.
The case is quite extraordinary, and I do not think this article can do justice to it. The manipulation of the wife by the third party, who clearly had ulterior motives, would make great fiction, were it not real.
The salutary lesson that everybody should take from this case is the fact that the ex-husband spent £1.4m in legal fees defending himself against this spurious attack from his ex-wife, and in addition to spending that significant sum himself, he paid another £339,000 in contribution towards his ex-wife’s legal fees, so, in total, he expended in excess of £1.7m because there was no formal Court ordered clean break.
We have commented on this repeatedly in the past, and it cannot be overemphasised just how important it is to have a formal Court ordered clean break ancillary to your divorce to prevent any further or future claims being made by your former spouse.
Not only does this protect you in claims during your lifetime, but it can also protect you in terms of claims against your Estate in the event of your death.
There were over 1.7m good reasons to get a Court ordered clean break in this instance.
The wife might have pursued fools gold and got precisely nothing for her trouble, but the ex-husband has also lost, and this whole case is a deeply sorry saga for everyone involved.
https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewfc/2025/401/data.pdf
This is only intended to be a summary of the recent case and not specific legal advice. If you would like further information please contact a member of our team.
