Talk

Flip

Here you'll find divorce help and support from other Mners. For legal advice, you may find Advice Now guides useful.

Divorce/separation

What should I offer my ex-husband?!

2 replies

chiquita1977 · 14/03/2017 18:10

I was married to my husband for something like 12 years with 2 children and are now divorced.

At the time of divorce, my solicitor advised me against spending money on a consent order because she felt that I wouldn't be able to afford to keep up the mortgage payments by myself anyway. 8 years later, I'm still in the same property and haven't missed one mortgage payment.

I have settled (my responsibility) of the (joint and several) debt which was £33,000 and have continued to make the interest only mortgage payments by myself.

He has remarried and has 2 more children with his new wife. He doesn't my children at all now. He rents a house 2 miles away from us and is self-employed (he works a lot of hours but I don't know how much he earns)

I am a single parent with full time care of my children, claiming tax credits and trying to run a business but not earning any money from it at the moment.

I've just had the house valued at £220,000 and there is a mortgage and secured loan on the property totalling £165,000. After selling costs I estimate the equity to be around £40k.

It took me a while to come to terms with selling the house as I have been there for 15 years and it's the only house my children have known but I now feel that I am strong enough to move on, if finances allow.

Because of the IVA that I had to pay of the debt, my credit rating is extremely poor and having a low income, it will be impossible for me to get my own mortgage without a large deposit.

I paid for an hours consultation with a solicitor who told me that I would be lucky to get a 60/40 split in my favour and really it should be 50/50. I have a nagging feeling that this isn't quite right but I don't want to keep throwing good money after bad paying for solicitors' advice.

I've completed an online divorce settlement calculation and it said that because we were married for 10years+ and have 2 children that live with me full time, then I would be entitled to 90% of any assets but this doesn't seem quite right to me either.

Have any of you been in a similar situation (I doubt it as I think this is quite rare!) or can you offer any advice?

OP posts:

Report

MrsBertBibby · 15/03/2017 05:13

I assume you are in England or Wales? If so....

Bloody hell, your first solicitor wants her head examined, and the second one needs urgent training.

Your ex has remarried. The Court cannot consider his claims, such as they are. Which on that information is not much!

It's hard to advise without full info, but so far, I'm at you retaining the home, 100%. Does he pay maintenance, btw?

You need a solicitor who is competent. If you can say roughly where you are, I or one of the other family lawyers on here might be able to suggest someone.