Divorcing a cocklodger

I don’t believe all that

a male work colleague of mine got divorced about the same time, he bought his ex wife out of the mortgage , doesn’t pay any CMS as he has the children most often , has given up a small amount of pension and she applied for spousal support and was turned down for it

Yikes. This is far too complicated a situation for anyone on this forum to be able to give particularly useful advice - mostly because this is a situation that requires legal advice. And no one here is qualified to - or should - be giving legal advice on a forum like this. The best you're going to get is some empathy/sympathy, likely some "why on earth did you shovel a load of money towards a guy who obviously had financial drama from the get go"; some "make sure you understand what's separate property versus community property"; perhaps some "why didn't you get a prenup??" and some personal stories of woe.

Make sure you have a very good lawyer who is adept at making sure they do the work to establish what is separate property (presumably your rental property) and what is community property. Do your own diligence in terms of figuring out what was paid for (house and business wise) our of your pre-marriage property/earnings, and what has been paid for out of your "whilst married" earnings. Your lawyer should be doing that. Do not throw good money after bad - cut off access to joint credit cards and joint accounts - or at the very least ensure no debts can be run up and no monies expended without sign off.

As for this business of his: that's for the lawyers to figure out - none of us here know how the business was set up, what its financial state is, what you contributed, what the source of those funds was etc etc etc. There are too many unknowns here to be able to give you any useful advice - that's what the lawyers are for. Just document everything and avoid having verbal communications with the guy - make sure it's all in writing.

Meanwhile get yourself a decent therapist so you have someone to talk to about all of this, and to work through all the drama. Hopefully they will help you address why you ended up with a guy like this and why you continued to pour money into a money pit. That process will hopefully help you to avoid those kinds of situations and people in the future, and to better understand your own decision making process and how to make better (i.e. less potentially risky/damaging) decisions in the future.

Good luck.

But at the same time he could easily argue the his ex wife has another 20 years of potential working time to make up any financial loss - that he doesn’t have, so he could argue for a larger portion of the settlement

OP - if you haven't already, you must see a solicitor.
My ex and I were amicable but I knew I needed to make sure things were water tight. I was due to get an inheritance and I wanted to make sure he couldn't get his hands on a penny of it, even though he said he wouldn't even try. It's called a Clean Break Order, worth you looking in to.
I fail to see why he should be housed at your expense, when you have 2 resident children. Yes, he will be entitled so a share of the equity but I'm pretty sure the courts won't take into account his low earning unless he has a disability or some other reason other that 'personal choice'.
Please, just don't fill in the forms blindly, get proper advice.

I don't think he could fairly argue that as a man of working age, its better that his older kids share a bedroom because a working age dad won't work more than 4 hours a week (assuming his 8k is minimum wage). He's working age. He could work.more hours. The taxpayer shouldn't be expected to make up the shortfall, nor should his ex wife or his kids.

The OP says her husband is 20 years older, this will also have an influence as the OP has 20 more years of potential work to make up any difference- so the split may be closer to 50/50 then 70/30

Why do you keep talking about 50%? As someone else said, a court prioritises children.

You might think 50% "sounds fair" between two adults but even IF it was, you have kids. You do 70% of the work for two kids so aim for 70%. Actually, aim for 80% and be prepared to settle on 70%.

You aim for 70% to enable you to buy a 3 bed so each child has their own room 10 days out of 14. He buys a 2 bed and the kids share 4 nights a fortnight.

You will both be expected to maximise earnings so as a start he can earn min wage if not doing any childcare. Unless he is retirement age.
His mortgage capacity will be negligible on £8k self employed. This is a problem for you on housing need.
How long have you been married /
living together?
What did you each have coming into marriage - pension for eg can be apportioned just for the period you were together.
How recent was inheritance as if it’s not been mixed very long that can affect things
Ideally he would move out and rent on UC and then childcare split would be clearer. However UC has a minimal income floor for self employed set at min wage x 35 hours and they will use this as basis for UC claim not £8k as they don’t expect people to run unprofitable businesses
You can argue his earning capacity is min wage x 35 hours
Ex was found not to be maximising earnings in similar situation. I had invoices showing his daily rate (and so showed he was not working very many days!)
Does the business have any assets that can be sold?
Yes age can make a difference as it affects mortgage capacity and ability build up pension.

Whatever you do don’t put any trust in mediation. They just want a result. I thought they were about fairness … no. ExH declared he was leaving his well paid job … that was accepted.

also they draw the process out. We were told not to bring anything, however we both brought spreadsheets. mediator wanted to go through low value things line by line .. we had lived apart for years, all we needed was finances agreed.

You need good legal advice which will not be cheap. No point asking on here as it is such a complicated mess. Good luck.

I had to provide Exdh with a home and he made himself voluntarily unemployed in 6 months preceeding the divorce. La la la la. It was worth every fucking penny to be rid of that cocklodger and through sheer hard work I am solvent again and love my single life. Good luck op. Once bitten.....never again

Hi, I have some experience with this. The fundamental principle behind the Marriage Act is a 50/50 split of assets. That’s all assets. You will need to fill out form E carefully & in some detail ( I had to prepare to go to trial at the financial settlement stage & had 3 large suitcases of tabulated & cross-referenced material. Fortunately we settled at the court house door) The financial split includes pensions and his business ( tho this is probably not worth much) as well as property. You should thoroughly document all of your own investment in the family house, his business & any other areas you made a financial contribution. You need to decide what you want as a settlement & offer it to him. If he resists your offer, you may need to do some sabre-rattling to get him to settle on your terms.
In my case, it took 3 years to agree a financial settlement. My ex went after my business, claiming it was worth much more than it was.I really had to hold my nerve. Once we had exchanged Form E info, it was clear he had a lot to lose if he contested settlement, so he agreed.
Also be sure you get a sealed court decision, or else he could come back later for more. A good solicitor should know this, but some are sloppy.

Your solicitor said his needs will be assessed.
Im interested because i have a male neighbour who rents two doors down.

He is quite chatty with me and the neighbours. He got divorced in 2021.
Said he owned his house but his wife got the lot including his police pension ( he left the force 2 years ago he works for a electronics manufacturer now) and savings.

How can that be?. I thought both parties get taken into consideration in divorce so both are able to fund housing.

You have to. ALL assets must be considered in a divorce. Why would you try and leave it?

You shouldn't have to sell it. You will likely have to take a mortgage and buy him out, and therefore stay in the current home. It sounds like you should have the ability to do that?

Again, your best bet sounds like it's going to rest on you having the children for most of the time, and therefore having a greater housing need than him. I would be working on that in parallel. Doing the finances first removes this, which is probably your only real bargaining advantage.

As to the business - you may in fact own half of it, whether it's documented as such at the moment or not. But it'll only be worth what it's actually worth now (or in the near future when it is valued) - which sounds like basically nothing. Or even negative.

Why on earth is your solicitor not explaining this to you? And why are you not getting yourself up to speed on how this is viewed by the courts?

Perhaps you need a new solicitor...

I have no advice but I’m sorry about the situation you’re in. Hopefully with a great lawyer you can mitigate some of the damage.

What made you decide to leave him? When things get tough I’d cling onto that. It’s shit and it will cost you, but it will be worth it.