How do I stop my husband being a financial bastard?

[WhatAnAbsolutePenis]

Back ground - we’re married, 2 kids and live in a rented flat. He inherited a house from a friend which he decided to rent out. That’s been rented out for about 3 weeks now and he gets over 1k a month for it.
He works full time and I’m a student in the NHS, including placements and full time uni all year round and I work as well.

Before he inherited this house, we had a shared account for bills and rent. He put in about £600ish a month and I put in £400 and we used to get tax credits.

We are no longer entitled to tax credits.

He has a few weeks ago thrown in my face that he pays for everything. Food, bills and rent.

We had an argument today and he’s done it again. Obviously he puts a significant amount in now because he gets the rent and has to replace the tax credits that we are no longer entitled to.

We just had an argument about the front door (he loves to bitch about the flat. I’ve lived here for years before we were married and he makes it clear that it isn’t up to his standards, the Windows, the kitchen, the bathroom, the front door etc eyc) and yet again he threw in my face that only he pays the rent.

I told him fuck the fuck off and don’t come home tonight.

I’m perfectly fucking capable of paying the rent without him. He can move out. Problem solved.

What exactly does he expect me to do, ditch my degree and my career, somehow inherit a house just so we can be on an even keel with money?!

What kind of absolute bastard throws this in their wife’s face every time they have any argument?

The house has only been rented out for 3 weeks, is this it now? This being thrown in my face every 10 seconds?

he seems to think if he sold it straight away then he would be subject to a massive tax bill

That's him obfuscating!

You're currently renting, right?

So you move into the flat, give up the rental property, it becomes your family home, your primary dwelling. No tax is payable on it. You live in the flat and could then look for a family home.

That's if he wasn't such a knob. Instead ditch the bastard and definitely take 50% of the flat, it's yours. And remind him because he's bound to have "forgotten" that even if he's kept the flat in his name it's half yours.

Do it, even if to piss him off!!

OK taken on board your update, OP, the extra information is important.

Glad you have it a bit clearer. Don't forget, your DH should get the first £1000 rental income tax free as of 2017, every little helps as they say.

I don't agree that money turns the nicest people nasty. No, it turns people who have that tendency already into meanies. Watch out in the future, remember you had to go to a solicitor to know your rights and then lay it on the line to your DH, before he was tugged back into line. He should have wanted to share his good fortune with you out of love not through having to comply with law.

I am glad you found such helpful and good advice from the solicitor who made a good point about using your lower tax rate if the rent were divided between you if you were both to own the house and both let it out.

It sounds like as you were living a part a fair bit until you married the solicitor rightly points out that it might (were you to part) fall under the short marriage rules for divorce purposes (i.e. you get less from each other). Also check it is a valid marriage in English law I have a client who only had a religous ceremony. His wife thinks they are married and he knows they are not and he is keeping that secret - I don't advise him on any of that but it just came up in a meeting on something else. Same happened with Mick Jagger's wife - she thought she m arried him in Bali but the ceremony was not recognised so she got less money when they parted as she was leaving him not as a spouse but a live in lover. However there is nothing on the thread to suggest you didn't marry officially in the Uk so this may not be relevant.

Wow they are proper bastards to deliberately not marry them!

We are officially married. In England and all the right way.
He does want to share his ‘good fortune’ but I think he resents the fact that he is now paying the lions share because of tax credits and resents the fact and took it out on me.
It will be the last time that happens.

I’m also not perfect, and I’ve done some things that made him feel insecure (not money or affair related) so as with all these things there are two sides to the coin and I need to look at stuff I do as well.

OP so glad you have been able to have a full and frank discussion with your DH & that you seem to have a positive way forward. Also great that the solicitor was rather more useful than the paperwork indicated..., and thanks for sharing to improve my knowledge too! good luck for a happy future and the house eventually becoming something really positive for your family as the benefactor intended. Xx

He may take it in and then go talk to his own legal advisor who will tell him the truth. It worries me that you did not feel able to be fully honest with him. You did to him exactly what he did to you - said something untrue with patronising conviction. You say you have made him feel insecure in the past, so this is not just about money it's about trust and you two don't trust each other.

Now you know where you stand, it would build trust in future if you get legal and financial advice together as a couple. I would insist on that.

That is an interesting update and that the "short marriage" aspect is still a consideration despite you having children as you have only cohabited for 3 years despite being together much longer. I imagine it would only be a couple of years before a judge deemed you to have crossed that boundary given that you have children. But in any case, your aim has never been to get divorced!

When you say you aren't sure if it's possible to put your name on the house, what is it that you are unsure of? I thought that he should be able to gift you half the house without any stamp duty as there's no mortgage on it. Were you led to think there might be an issue? (purely out of interest)

You could either do it as joint tenants (meaning that if something happened to one of you, the house automatically goes to the surviving partner) or as tenants in common, meaning you have to make wills stating where you want the money to go and children cannot inherit until they are 18, but it sounds like the solicitor touched on this with you.

Getting legal and financial advice together to work out what next and to treat the family finances and future as a joint responsibility does sound like it would be good for you. Not only to solve the issues of what to do with the house and wills and provision for the children in the event of the worst happening, but you have said that you are likely to be earning more than him in the future and the teamwork should start now on this stuff.

OP please don't turn in on yourself and look for things to feel guilty about.

Does he do that? No, he's too busy seething and resentful at having to pay for his family. Not a good look.

Please don't go into denial. Please remember how you started this thread because you wanted to stop him being a financial bastard (your words).

Every time he starts on like this just walk away. Shut the conversation down with an interruption. You have to go out, go to the loo, start being busy with something else, engineer a phone call. Just don't engage

That won't work and why should she? She needs to stand up to him not cower and run away.

Op you come across as very strong and I’m so pleased you’ve put him straight. My worry now would be if I could respect and love someone like him.

Oh... I don't know. He acted like an absolute penis, yes, but I think the OP is accepting of the fact she's probably said a few out of line things to him too and so she didn't let him off the hook but doesn't need to LTB on the basis of a recent period of twattishness. The main thing is she went out and got herself clued up on the back of it and this is to the benefit of the whole family, including him.

I have one of the most equitable and strong marriages I know out of all of our friends and family - we know we are lucky with this and are very grateful for it because other things in our life are not going so well so we do make the most out of having each other.

But if I wrote down every crappy jibe we'd ever made to one another in frustration during the course of our relationship re: pulling your weight financially/chore-wise/budgeting-wise or whatever (all of which we completely share 50/50 and mostly do together at the same time), I'm sure people would be telling us to LTB!

It's far and few between these days because we've been there, had the argument, had the make up and apologies, had the chat and know how to approach it better. And we've both acted like a dick at times - we're so equitable we even share that aspect of our marriage 50/50

And much respect to you once again OP for not just taking it on the chin and going out and empowering yourself. You've done the whole family a favour in doing so.

So it wouldn’t be as much as 50/50 because they do it from the day of living together. That’s not to say I would get nothing, just that it wouldn’t be so simple.

So, how much? It's important, because other people in similar situations will be reading this thread and, because of earlier posts, will believe they're entitled to a 50/50 split. Clearly this is not what your solicitor said.

I don't live in England, but I have to say I would be very surprised that an inherited gain by one party to a marriage would be automatically split 50/50 between both parties under English law, without some extra reason for the equal split.

I discussed a good few other things and laid it down thick that we are equal and that a judge will see us as equal in the event of a divorce (I didn’t tell him about the revelation later on in the meeting) so we should be equal now.

But this isn't what the solicitor said, is it? And you know this.

I’d like to think I’ve nipped this one in the bud though. We have been together for many years, we have an otherwise excellent relationship (another reason why I’m fucking incredulous to this latest issue) so I believe that we can get over this —ego— hurdle.

What if he has taken his own legal advice? If so, he will know that you aren't equal in terms of this property. He may conclude that you've tried to mislead him.

This could come back to bite you - either now, or worse in years to come, depending on how different the solicitor's advice was, to what you said it was.

Sorry if I've misread the thread but did you say one of your DC is starting secondary school?

The solicitor asked the OP how long she had been with her DH and said, ok, you've been together a long time and the starting point is 50/50 of all assets and then needs will be taken into account and adjusted for.

Then the solicitor later discovered that, although they have children and have been together a long time, OP and DH have only been co-habiting for 3 years. Co-habiting is treated as length of marriage (i.e. if you have been cohabiting for 10 but only married for 2, it is treated as a marriage of 12 years). But OP and DH's situation is not as straightforward as that because they were together a long time, have children, but in fact have only been cohabiting for 3 years. So in their particular case the solicitor couldn't say it would be exactly 50/50.

See link below for recent case that challenged the perception that the split is automatically 50/50 when a marriage is a short one and - in this particular case - childfree. It was last year and made people stop resting on the 50/50 assumption.

The fact that it is inheritance should not be relevant in the OP's particular case. There has been a legal advice site linked to on this thread already to explain why. In England it is treated as a marital asset unless it comes very close to the divorce itself and there are no children because the overriding concern is providing adequately for the children.

www.telegraph.co.uk/family/relationships/case-could-change-everything-couples-divorcing-short-marriage/

I didn’t tell him about the revelation later on in the meeting

What revelation? Sorry, I am confused. Do you mean about making a will or the less than 50/50 share - or was it something different again?

Apologies for the thickness, but I truly have read that post through a few times.

Tom, sd miralis also says it depend on the circumstances. Eg if the only money a non working spouse with children has is inheritance within a fairly long partnership/marriage then the lower earner might well get much more than 50%, never mind 50% as the children's needs come first. Also in my own case (not inheritance) whilst the starting point is 50/50 my husband earned a lot less so he got closer to 60% not 50%. T That is why it is so hard to give a definite answer that works in every case.

I know no one is considering divorcing on this thread but quite a good summary is at www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/guidance-on-financial-needs-on-divorce-june-2016-2.pdf

Useful link Xenia - particularly:

The court will assess the needs of both parties

Before requiring payments to meet need the court will stand back and consider what portion of the payer’s resources should fairly go to the payee

Where resources are modest the children’s need for a home with their primary carer may predominate but, if possible, the court will strive to stretch resources to provide a home for children with each of their parents

White v White [2001]... makes plain that ‘non‐matrimonial’ property (i.e. pre‐acquired and/or gifted and inherited property and post‐separation accruals) can be taken into account if “needs” require.

What revelation? That, despite having been together a long time, the Op and her DH had only been co-habiting for 3 years.

Oh - Ok thanks Mirialis!