How to people afford to live separately

You won't get a council house. Partner pays maintenance via CMS (not optional) and you cut your cloth to fit your resources - 2 bedroom flat each, bought or rented, kids share a room, or 1 bedroom flat and you use living room as 2nd bedroom.

A council house is rarer than hen’s teeth round here. I don’t know the answer to this- I suppose housing benefit would go some of the way towards private rental if you qualify for it.

I'm a lone parent renting. I am fortunate to have a housing association property and I get UC as a lone parent. When DC starts full time work and I Iose UC he will need to contribute to bills and rent unfortunately. I will also likely have to downsize to a 1 bedroom place when he moves out.

Would you be entitled to UC?

Its a lot harder for people to split and continue the same sort of lifestyle as they had before.

One option that could work IF you get on is for you to keep the house and then rent a small 1 bedroom place nearby. You then take it in turns to stay with the children whilst the other stays in the flat. Could be a compromise until the kids leave home when you can then each buy a smaller place as wont need to accommodate the kids.

You should also look into what benefits you would get once split and each on a lower income. you may be able to get some of your rent paid for etc.Not sure how it all works but worth investigating.

Birdnest? Keep current house which has a fine/small mortgage if I’ve understood correctly. Rent/buy a 1 bed flat/crash pad. Keep everyone’s stuff and the kids in the house. Parents alternate where they stay. Just might be a good idea if you have a small mortgage (and therefore some spare cash?) and are on good terms (you’re happy to stay together til kids are 18 so it can’t be too toxic to birdsnest?)

It’s a nightmare.
75% of the council tax, all bills, overheads and utilities, maintenance, boiler repairs, insurance, heating, all paid out of one salary.

And if you stay single all that out of one pension.

A lot of people in this situation sell and use the equity for a shared ownership property with a small mortgage. Others have the NRP in a studio or 1 bed.

You're right in that neither of you would be able to afford rent on a property with multiple bedrooms in most areas. In some couples who are splitting, one buys the other out.

I'm inclined to think that with things being so expensive these days, the only way you can split AND keep a roof over both your heads, is if you're still able to get on OK, and are able to agree to live separate lives in the same house. Would that be a possibility in your situation OP? Another thought is, would it be possible to split your current home in some way, so that you can both have your own separate parts? For example, in my old house, we had front and back doors, and could, with a bit of work, have adapted it so that one lived upstairs and one lived downstairs, but of course not all houses lend themselves to that. Another thought, and again, this would only work if you're able to be civil to each other, is would it be viable to have an annexe of some sort built in the garden, so that one of you could live in there? These are just all ideas that have sprung into my mind, but at the end of the day, if things aren't amicable, then it's going to be a lot harder for both of you.

We separated in 2015. I moved to rented with our son as I earned more. He stayed in the house which was actually mine but he'd lived there for years.

After three years we sold at my request, I gave him half the equity which he used to clear his debts..he then rented a flat. I had a better job by then and used my equity to buy the house I'm still in six years on. He moved to another nicer rented flat three years ago.

Son is in yr12 and will hopefully get an apprenticeship next year so maintenence will stop then. I don't think ex will buy until his dad passes if at all.

Equity was about 35k each but I've still got a pretty hefty mortgage which runs to age 74 which isn't great.

Well first of all he doesn’t get to decide if he can “afford” to give maintenance- he has to, and CMS decide how much. They don’t care what his rent is, he still has to pay towards his children.

The real answer is that it is harder, money is tighter, and you have to make changes to lifestyle to adjust to becoming a one income household. It’s hard and there’s no easy way unfortunately.

Sell the house, split the equity as your deposit each and get as long as mortgage as you can to make it as cheap as you can. You both need to speak to a mortgage broker. The houses will be smaller. Colleagues have had to take money from their parents to be able to buy out and stay in their house.