can we do this?

[Really1]

Will try and keep this short. DH and I have separated, although not a mutual agreement really its very amicable.
Neither of us want to go through solicitors or anything but have agreed to sell our house, split the equity 50/50, he will pay me £500 a month in child maintenance (we have 2 children under 3) which will go towards their keep and nursery fees and he will have them one night a week. We have agreed on who gets what furniture when we do sell and have both agreed to write our own letter detailing the above and sign it (so neither of us can say we were forced into signing something years down the line etc). We are still good friends and hope for it to stay this way for our kids.
Can we now just go to a solicitor and say this is what we have decided, please draw it up as a legal document and we will sign and adhere to? or is it a bit more complicated than that? Any idea of roughly how much something like this will cost?

thanks

[Teachercreature]

Yep! I had similar with my ex - if you're all agreed you can go to divorce online and they will literally guide you through the process at a fraction of the cost.I recommend the guy who helped me - his email is "[email protected]" and he was super helpful.

Can't recall what I paid but they offer different levels of help on site: www.divorce-online.co.uk/

And also I wish you all the very best in your new life going forwards.

[Really1]

This may sound strange but can we go through with what I posted in my original post without divorce? It's not something we want to go through with right this moment as we have enough going on trying to sell the house & buy individual ones. We are probably looking at a 2 year separation for grounds of divorce.

[Teachercreature]

I can't see a reason why not? If you're not sure though, why not give Citizens Advice Bureau and ask them? (Particularly re consulting a solicitor etc, as that bit I don't have a clue about.) I found them really helpful.

Good luck!

[MOSagain]

If you go ahead now without divorcing/getting consent order (financial agreement) it may not be 100% watertight.
You can get a separation agreement setting this out and hopefully then convert to a consent order on divorce in 2 years

[iheartdusty]

If and when you do get it drawn up into an order, you might also consider a token monthly payment from him to you - eg 5p a month- which you would not collect unless real disaster struck and you just could not afford to support yourself and the DC, in which case it would keep the door open to allow you to ask the court to order maintenance for you. I think it's prudent where you have such young children, and although you are on reasonable terms with STBX now, this may not always be true. If you get a final order without even nominal payments, you can't have them later.

do either of you have a pension? what have you agreed to do about dividing them?

[Really1]

Thanks for the replies-

Iheartdusty- sorry if I'm coming across dim but what do u mean ask for 5p a month? Also he's agreed to give me £500 a month in maintenance for the children already so if we get this drawn up he can't change his mind and give less anyway can he?
Should I get the seperation agreement before we sell the house? Sore anyone know roughly how much it's likely to cost?

[Collaborate]

You really need proper, paid for legal advice.

Even a court order for child maintenance can be replaced by a CSA assessment after a year. If he offers to pay over the odds for child maintenance bear that in mind.

A nominal (5p pa) spouse maintenance order keeps alive your spouse maintenance claim. It's akin to an insurance policy.

Reported judgments in financial cases are seldom less than 10 pages long. You can't post a few paragraphs on a public forum and expect anything more than general pointers. Good luck.