Financial settlement and improving credit/finances

[rockandfeather]

I'll give you some background here. I'm 45, have been separated from my ex-husband for 4 years, we are approaching decree nisi and are trying to get an agreement financially through mediation. We were married for 10 years, together 15, we have three children aged 12,11 and 8 that live with me full time. I have not worked for over 13 years as we both agreed I would be a SAHM. After we split, I used some inheritance to retrain as a coach and start a business. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to make that work and have had almost no income from it in the past year or so, so I have been relying on benefits. We had a verbal agreement that he would cover the mortgage and some utilities in the interim. The house is joint-owned but he lives with his new partner and has had a baby who's 6 months old. Initially, in our agreement, he said he would cover the cost of our housing and utiliites until my youngest was 16. He's now saying due to changed circumstances he's only going to pay the minimum child maintenance and reduce it as the children grow. That's half the income I have been living off. So, I have to get a job quickly, I have looked at my options and can't find something with my experience to cover my costs and childcare. I have decided to try teacher training as the prospects are better long term regarding salary. So I have two issues, I have to bridge a gap of about £1000 a month and the other issue is I can't get credit. There is about £150,000 equity in the house and he earns over 100,000 a year in a stable government job. I can't afford legal representation at the moment as I have used up my savings. We have been trying to reach an agreement on finance for over a year with no luck. I'm not sure whether I should just let it go to court as I feel I should have a greater share. I saw in another post that I should maybe ask for all of the house as he also has a good pension and I have nothing. Any thoughts on how to solve this and approach mediation? Also I have thought about perhaps getting a part rent part buy house buy as I could potentially have a pot of money to move forward with but I'm not sure if a credit score is required for that. Any thoughts on what I should be asking for?

[millymollymoomoo]

You need to understand the cetv of the pensions
Once you have that you’ll be in a position to see whether 100% of the equity is right
You’re probably aiming for about a 65/70% split of assets - that might be achieved by taking all the house or might be too much / little
But you need to know all assets to be in a position to be able to negotiate