Occupation order hearing next week, panicking

[mamacat612]

Can anyone tell me what my chances are or have any experience of this?

I am divorcing my husband, we have one child. I left the family home with our child to go live with family members due to his angry outbursts.

I asked him within a few weeks to please move out of the home and allow myself and our child to move back in. This is for stability for our child. He refused and said he has no where else to go. This is partially true, we moved to an area to be close to my family when we had our child and his parents and family members do live hours away, I don’t dispute this.

I applied for an occupation order on advice.

He is saying if he is forced to leave the home, that he will have no choice but to move back to parents which means loosing his job, or be homeless.

We both earn similar amounts, neither of us can afford a private rental and paying half the mortgage which I have accepted in my statement.

He is saying in his statement that I can get housing benefit and rent with our child and has done a calculation! Or live with family members but I want our child to be back in the family home. My family members can’t accomodate us long term and it’s crapped as we are in a flat.

He has started financial proceedings for the divorce as we haven’t been able to agree with either the sale of the house or buying each other out.

If I am to move back in I can’t afford the mortgage alone and would need him to still pay his half.

I don’t have any concrete evidence of his angry outbursts other than my statement, no other witnesses. But I can’t move back in and live with him until this is all sorted, his behaviour scares me.

For his part he says we did argue at the end of the relationship, but he denies any angry outbursts or intimidating behaviour.

We are both self representing and there will be a legal advisor at the hearing to ask questions.

Asking him for months to move out of his home when you have decided to divorce isn't behaving 'nicely'.

And you CAN drop the court order you jsut don't want to.

You could also pay for someone to come in and fix the skirtings, door handles and lay some carpet for less than all this court stuff is costing.

He doesn’t have more rights than you and your child, he has equal rights as a joint owner.
As someone else has said without actual evidence of domestic abuse you won’t be granted an occupation order.
Neither of you can afford private and afford half the mortgage.
You will have 2 choices co-habit until it’s all sorted or put the house up for sale asap and one of you stay elsewhere until it’s sold.
Whilst I totally understand you don’t want to co-habit, without domestic abuse being documented, hands are tied.
If they acted on the say so of one person and their relatives (who could be seen to be biased) more people would say they were victims of abuse in order to get their own way… I’m not for a second saying that’s the case here but you can see why options are limited.
My friend put her house up for sale as soon as the marriage broke down, without waiting for divorce proceedings to finalise because they couldn’t live together until everything was sorted and neither could afford private rent/half of the obligations to the house.
She was lucky that she could move in with her mum until it was all sorted, and thankfully the house sold quickly.
You don’t have more right to the house because it’s been agreed you are the primary carer of your child, you need to readjust your thinking on that part.

So you stopped working BEFORE having a child? Why? What were you doing?

You have a shared asset, and the ability to live in it. That you don’t want to is not the court’s problem, any more than your desire to get it solved at the highest price possible is.

You made your inheritance a marital asset by investing it in the family home. It is no longer your personal asset. What you think he should do morally is irrelevant.

I have seen, more than once, litigants come before a court with similar arguments. They invariably manage to piss the judge off for wasting the court’s time.

Why would he pay his half of the mortgage for a property he isn’t living in at the same time as having to pay for somewhere for himself to live?

It’s hardly his half if he’s not in it! You’re being totally unreasonable expecting him to.

Presumably a court will decide on what’s fair financially and that’ll be it.

Of course they will do this - to support your case. I’ve done this before with no intention of evicting them. It’s easily said.

Why didn't you just put the house on the market or do the work needed in those months? You really haven't handled this very smartly I'm afraid

I’m genuinely bemused the op can’t seem to see that the court will see right through this, of course people get their family to say stuff to support them, it’s not fhe courts first rodeo, they’ve seen it all and worse a thousand times before,

But the financial order is because you won’t agree to sell the house, and want your inheritance back.
If you renegotiated that, agreeing the house sale and division would there be any need for a court to agree your finances?

To be fair no she can't - she could apply to vacate the hearings but it's almost certainly too late

Because he wouldn’t agree to my friends or family members carrying out the work and wants to obtain quotations etc. all just a tactic to delay.

He knows I want to sell the house, it just needs to be finished first.

No it doesn’t.

But it’s not a big job, get the quotes, I’m assuming your family wasn’t offfering to do it for free,

then I don’t understand why you haven’t got your family in to do that work yet? It’s only basic carpentry from what you’ve described

get the work done next week then get it on the market. Unless you will still disagree on the asking price?

Because you are the one being obstructive, and a judge will recognize this.

I’m afraid fbis is correct it looks like you are trying to delay so you can live there and get him to support you in that financially and when you didn’t get your way you’ve thrown accusations at him, got you family and mate to sign statements saying whatever you need and are finding every excuse under the sun not to have the house sold.

That is not a delay tactic that is a reasonable boundary, not wanting to involve your friends and family in this acrimonious split is a wise choice, you should have just employed a local handyman like any normal person would.

You come across as a VERY difficult person.

Right, this isn’t true at all.

Even if we agreed a split, it’s going to take a while for the house to sell and that to be settled. Why shouldn’t our l child be able to live in the family home until then rather than out of a suitcases

They would have done it cheaper so it would have benefitted us both. trust me I know him he was just being obstructive.

It would not have benefitted him to have the people who you have made unevidenced accusations to about him in his personal space doing odd jobs.

Because he removed the door camera so we couldn’t see when he was home or not!

You can live there, you are choosing not to.

This was before I filed for any orders… he just didn’t want to because it was my family.

Surely you have a key, you’re entitled to be there, just get the work done.