To think db has been scammed by his ex

[lurchersrool]

Db is going through a divorce. There are two children involved who he sees regularly and the divorce was triggered by his infidelity - though he's single now and insists the marriage was in trouble for years before he cheated which was certainly how it looked from the outside tbf.

Anyway, the point is there was fault on both sides but I feel he has been royally shafted by the way the finances have been dealt with. He and I were both given £80k by df in order to buy property. That was about 12 years ago, just before the crash. Db and exsil had just got together but they bought the property together, despite df raising some concerns about it. I don't know all the ins and outs but they had a fair bit of work done on the property which involved re-mortgaging and a couple of years ago moved to a bigger house.

Apparently the situation now is that the amount of equity is so little that there is no point in selling and they have no other assets so db can't get his £80k, or even half of it back. Ex sil has said the most the bank can lend her is £20k, and even that she's saying will partly need to cover her legal costs, so he's going to end up with a pittance. I think it's a joke. She has a well-paid job while db has no real career as such. He has back problems from an injury he got years ago and has always struggled to hold down permanent jobs. He looked after one of the dc for a year as a baby so ex sil could go back to work, but now he's being left with nothing, well nothing aside from a share of her pension but he obviously won't get that for years so nothing really tangible.

It just seems so wrong. He refused to get a solicitor although I had offered to help pay, and I know df is beside himself worrying about db's future. He thought the £80k would at least see him in secure housing but now it seems to have gone and db is back to shitty bedsits. To make it worse she is now asking for maintenance which I think is just spiteful. Normally I always think men should pay for their kids but this woman has a well-paid job and db literally has nothing. AIBU to think she shouldn't be putting in this claim and db has been treated really badly here?

I can understand you being sympathetic to your db’s plight, but I think your sympathy is misplaced in this case.

The fact that he cheated is completely irrelevant but think about this logically. He contributed £80k and one years childcare. Ex-sil will have taken a minimum of 1 year maternity for 2 dc’s, she may have taken more, therefore childcare is at least equal. You say yourself that he hasn’t worked much. Ex-sil has built a career and had a good wage. It seems as though she has been contributing the majority of the household income over a 12 year period. I would assume that this would equate to significantly more that £80k.

Db has not fought or even asked for a greater share of custody of his dc, so according to your logic, ex-sil has contributed significantly more over the years, is taking responsibility for the dc, will have to support said dc alone (you yourself have stated that the small amount he could contribute will have no impact at all), whilst paying the full mortgage on the house so dc have a roof over their heads, but your poor db shouldn’t even have to pay the minimum amount needed to support them?

It would be a completely different situation if he had been primary carer for dc’s over the years which would have meant he had sacrificed his career for the benefit of the family, but the fact that he has neither worked or taken care of the dc (or only for 1 year of 7) means he doesn’t have a leg to stand on in my book. Yabvu.

He really does need to see a solicitor, though it may be too late if the judge is about to sign everything off. If he were the resident parent, for instance, he may have a claim to stay in the house.

Im struggling to get my head around how they could have little to no equity in the property. All I can think is they bought the first house on an interest only mortgage then paid over the odds for their current house. Stamp duty, moving costs and other expenditure then ate into that 80k.

It will cost your sil far more than 80k to bring those children up and your db is unwilling or unable to hold down a decent job and contribute properly to this. In the time they were together she contributed more financially to the marriage.

I don’t think your db has got the shitty end of the stick. It’s just life. People get into negative equity when the market shifts its a fact of life and a risk home owners take.

Why doesn’t he take on the children himself and live in the family home / downsize seeing as she’s so career oriented and he does a large chunk of childcare?? This is actually the pertinent question. And if he’s unwilling to do this, it says far more about him than it does about your sil.

Alternatively as there is no equity he can float the possibility of leaving the house joint owned and sell up when the youngest is 18. Your sil should still get the lions share seeing as she will be paying the mortgage.

DB will end up contributing a pittance because that'll be all he can afford and it'll make fuck all difference to their standard of living. That's why I think it's spiteful and she's doing it just to make a point.

It isn't spiteful to expect him to contribute to the upkeep of his children ffs regardless of whether he's loaded or skint. It is not the mothers responsibility just because she has a higher paid job and he doesn't get off scott free like some kind of victim because he doesn't have a career.

I just don't think someone should be punished for life for a simple mistake.

Stop minimising his actions and grow up. Cheating isn't a mistake, it's a choice. He made that choice and has to live with the consequences. Divorce is messy. That's just the reality of it.

Sorry OP but you're being a little over emotional when you need to be objective.

Lets look at this without all the cheating business shall we?

Parent A goes back to work
Parent B does childcare for 1 year
Parent A earns a great wage
Parent B doesnt really work
Parent A lives in house with DCs with 0 equity
Parent B invested 80k in house DCs live in
Parent A will have kids and house after divorce
Parent B will have access on select days.
Parent A will raise these kids herself now
Parent B wants his 80k back from the house his kids live in

Can you see how this looks?
Tell me why he shouldnt pay maintenance. Are they not his kids? Should he not pay towards them REGARDLESS of whether or not his ex has a great job?
Should they not stay in the house he invested in? Its his dc right?

Whats the issue??

Stop sympathising with your brother and actually prioritise his DC. They need everything from both parents.
When they're older i wonder how itll look when they find out their mum raised them and dad barely paid maintenance but oh he did childcare one year for one child

And you know what.
Fuck you with your 'hes a natural dad but shes a career woman' comment.
Having a career doesnt make you any less of a mother!!

But I don't think that he is ending up with nothing.
He invested 80k into a property at the height of the market. He married, had kids, extended the mortgage to pay for hone improvements. Presumably these were done to improve the living environment. He then ended his marriage.
She has said I can get 20k together to buy you out. He is refusing to get a solicitor to find out his rights. Seriously remind him once about your offer to pay for legal advice then refuse to discuss it any more with him.

The fact is he lost his investment in a bad real estate market. End of story. Not his Ex's fault. And OF COURSE he should pay maintenance for his kids!!!!!

I guess if he wasn't working she had no choice but to be a 'career woman'...

Why and when did your db leave the family home? If he has nowhere to live and the house is in joint names why isn’t he living their with his children and looking after the children?

It’s always said that a spouse can’t be kept out of the family home and if nothing has been sorted legally then he has as much right to live there as the other spouse

Your df gets my full sympathy.
Your dB gets none. He hasn’t worked and cheated on his wife. Just what did he expect?
It might be more helpful to consider the damage your db has caused his dc. Your nieces and nephews are the innocents in all of this. The 80k isn’t wasted, it is being used to care and house his own children.

Bear in mind the true value of a pension share is far more than the current valuation because in the future it would take a lot more to purchase equivalent rights. A £20k pension share could actually be equivalent to £60-80k in terms of true value. A lot of women get shafted this way. They take a house worth, say, £100k because they prioritise their children and housing them while the husband gives up the house but keeps a pension worth, say, £80k. Down the line at retirement date, if the wife wanted to get a pension of equivalent value in terms of payout it would cost her about three times as much as the house. The end result is H gets a lump sum and buys a house, gets a generous pension and wife is living on a hundred a week with a house to keep up.

It’s like saying in terms of labour value an 80year old man is better value than a baby. In 15 years your old man is dead and doesn’t generate any value but your baby is grown up and working like a Trojan.

My comment about her bringing more financial to the relationship still stands but also if he had never met her, the £80k would have still gone over 12 years for his living expenses etc so he would still be in the same position if not worse off.

There are no assets, so I don't see what you expect his ex to do? Your dbro will get half of nothing. Sad, but not unfair.

Of course the RP needs a house for the kids. Of course the NRP should pay whatever he can afford towards their maintenance. In this case that won't be much money, as his earning capacity is low, but he'll obviously do what he can.

The only thing I wonder is why the kids are going to stay with mum rather than dad? You say he did more childcare than he did, and if he can't work as much as she can then maybe he is better placed to look after the children from here on. Maybe it would make sense to go for residency? Not to avoid being "shafted", but because the kids would be happier staying with their main caregiver.

What is difficult to understand? He gets half of the value of the joint assets.

What do you think should happen? Genuinely curious. What would be the ideal scenario here?

You shouldn’t have put the reasons for their marriage break up on the post, it just blinds people.

When a friend got divorced, she kept the kids and therefore the house. However their house had increased in value and she still had to buy him out. She was told these were the options:

1. Sell and split money
2. keep house and pay him rent then when the kids turn 18 or she remarried then she has to pay him her half (he wanted this one...wanted to make sure she was still connected to him financially as part of his control)
3. The final option was to bring pensions into it.

However, are you saying their house is in negative equity? So if they sell it will be worth less and they will owe the bank? If that is right, obviously nobody benefits from selling and he won’t get his 80k back either way. They made financial decisions as a couple surely. He chose to badly invest 80k and it hasn’t paid off. So I’m not sure why you think she will be able to give that back to him. Yes, be cross they made terrible decisions but no it is not her fault alone.

Another TERRIBLE decision by him (and I’m sorry but only he is to blame for this) is for him not to get his own solicitor. What an absolute idiot. You need someone fighting your legal case. If it isn’t too late then he should seek advice. I would have thought writing a clause into the divorce about the house being sold when the kids are 18 (and hopefully it has risen in value) would have been a good way to go. If he has been shafted then it is utterly his fault without seeking legal advice.

Child maintenance is neither here nor there. Regardless of financial set up, it gets paid.

I do understand your frustration and anger OP- I felt the same. It was a fucking relief when everything was sorted out. It felt like the most unfair process on the planet. But when two people marry and make financial decisions together, they should think about the future too.

He only looked after one kid for a year? Seems bizarre he didn't do more, why didn't he go for custody? Sounds like he was a bit of a deadbeat dad and husband and the £80k your dad paid has gone towards his grandkids that you're dB isn't contributing towards.

I think the stbew should’ve got a clean break order, can’t belive he doesn’t want to pay maintenance for his own kids but expects to leech of his ex wife in her old age. Does he even work?

he's not the main carer is he though. He was for a year. But with two children and maternity leave the mother probably did more than a year.

Im i understanding this correctly, she has a career, can support the children and is the resident parent.

He is not employed, had an affair and is complaining about being expected to provide some CM as the non resident parent.

What did i miss?

Bear in mind that your ex sil still be paying the mortgage from now until the children are 18, increasing the equity which will be taken into account when the house is sold. When I bought my ex out our fmh at the end of our divorce he got an equity share based on the outstanding mortgage on the day he left, not the outstanding mortgage after I'd continued making mortgage payments for another 18 months. So he'll be lucky to get any equity, it's more about releasing him from the mortgage commitments, unless the house massively increased in value. In my case I remortgaged and bought ex out but he didn't get anything close to 50%. Also, "she's getting the house" is BS when there's no equity, she's getting to live in it but it's not a gift she's paying a mortgage which sounds like it's excessive future the property.

I'll bet you £80k this deadbeat tool stops bothering to see his children within two years.

What did i miss?

You missed the fact that he has a penis and a very large sense of entitlement. Of course he should be allowed to walk away from his kids when it’s no longer convenient and someone else should pay for them and bring them up for the next 15 years! And the universe should recompense him for his bad investment decisions , laziness and other poor life choices .

I like the comment about df's money going towards his grandkids. I'll put it that way to him and hope it helps. It's just awful seeing db throwing his life away.

He is adamant about not seeing a solicitor, I think he feels guilty. But I also think he has given up. I asked about him getting custody of the kids but he says that he wouldn't do that to his ex and that he sees her as the main parent anyway. I think she's always been quite controlling tbh and ex is more laidback. He stayed home with their youngest when she was born and for the second she insisted on taking a year off. I know they borrowed a bit from dm then (she and my df aren't together) but they did pay it back afaik. He just seems defeated now.

I do get what people are saying about the maintenance and I don't exactly disagree. It just felt like a final straw when I heard it yesterday but it won't make that big a difference either way. He's never going to turn into a big earner, it's just not him and he does get back problems a lot that d affect him. She just has a massive earning potential compared to him so I just don't see what she's gaining from insisting on a tenner or whatever she'd get. He sees kids a lot, including when she's at work, just not overnight atm and yesterday they were on about a holiday she is taking them on, which again seemed t be rubbing salt in the wound but, yes, I'm glad they're going and hope they have a lovely time. I just again don't see why she needs to take more from db in those circumstances.

BTW, there's not no equity. From what he said there's a bit, but her solicitor has told her there's no point in selling, and a judge would agree because they'd both only be left with £10 k (ish) and that's not enough to start again, at least not without a mortgage, which db would never get on his own, which I do agree with - his credit rating is shot. I'm going to get him to look into getting her to sell when kids are grown up I think, but don't know if he will or of it's too late. What a fucking mess....