What steps can be taken where a respondent to a financial application refuses to engage in the proceedings? For example, where correspondence is sent to the respondent’s known address but they don’t respond, they don’t attend hearings, and attempts at personal service have not been effective.

If pre-Application correspondence is leading nowhere, for the applicant the most practical course of action can be to issue proceedings. This is not regarded as a ‘hostile’ step pursuant to the pre-application protocol in the Family Procedure Rules 2010 (FPR 2010), SI 2010/2955 in the annex to FPR 2010, PD 9A. This will allow the court to regulate the proceedings efficiently and proportionately, and to make orders for disclosure backed with penal notices and the threat of imprisonment or the sequestration of assets. See Practice Note: Financial proceedings—pre-application requirements.

Once proceedings are issued, service can be effected either at the Respondent’s usual or last known address (FPR 2010, SI 2010/2955, 6.13(2)) or, if the applicant has reason to believe that the respondent no longer lives there and cannot after reasonable