To return the money to my husband or not?

[YouCanMakeItIfYouTry]

We've started our divorce proceedings and all is amicable, so far. No lawyers yet involved.

Money has always been a source of contention in our 10-year marriage.

He always earned much more than I did. His money went more onto property, legal, landlording (when we rented out our home and lived overseas), shares, bonds, holidays, car.

I worked throughout (mostly full time but also for myself at times) and I contributed to all daily life, food, school, child care, nannies, household, and holidays (I paid what I could, sometimes in instalments after, because we went on trips beyond my means that he always choose and I didn't really object to).

I had a full-time job I was really proud of until I had my last baby when I had to quit.

For our divorce settlement, he is asking for a 50/50 split on the profits of selling the house - minus the money he put in to buy the property.

The house situation is this:

He bought the home with the money he earned in his 20s, mostly but not all before we met. When he bought the home we were engaged. It was a year before we married. That was 10 years ago. I was in no position to contribute.

I have lived in the home, paid rent, married while in the home, lived overseas together where I contributed (as above) and the home was rented out. We now have three kids. We came back and have all lived in the home again for a while. We don't now.

So, in short, he wants the £150,000 back that he put in to buy the house.

On sale of the property, we'll hopefully get £450,000 profit.

That means, with his offer, I'll hopefully leave with £150,000 cash for a house for a deposit for me and the kids to live in most of the time. He'll get £300,000. He promises to take care of maintenance above and beyond for the kids financially (he'll be working longer hours while I work for myself and build my new business up and do more childcare.)

What do you think? What would you do?

I've set up a vote:

YABU - to not take this offer. You think what he is saying is fair. I should split profits on the home plus return the £150,000 cash he bought the house with.

YANBU - to not take this offer. I should not agree to this offer and not return £150,000. If you wouldn't take this offer, what do you think is fair and why?

Thank you.

@Kisskiss

Wasn’t the initial 150k part of pre-marital assets? Seems a fair offer to go halves on the house sale profit . Tbh without his initial deposit the 450k profit wouldn’t even exist..

Completely beside the point. He promised to share everything when he married, that includes that £150k. I paid off our mortgage when I got an inheritance, if we divorced I’d only get half that money back. That’s what marriage is all about.

Please get a lawyer asap, op. As others have said as his wife you are entitled to a 50/50 split of everything. Sadly he is having you on.
What sort of man makes his fiancée pay rent to him & then after marriage takes instalment payments for holidays? One to whom money is THE most important thing. That being the case there are no prizes for guessing he is levering you into accepting a very bum deal. No pension? Really? Even in the hugely unlikely event that he opted out, that would mean he put the money into another pot which you know nothing about. And it will be a very large pot indeed that he plans to keep all to himself. Of course he wants to keep lawyers out of it - as soon as they are involved the entirety of his assets will have to be revealed - the ‘no pension’ twaddle he’s impressed upon you would indicate there is a lot more involved here than the house sale that at the moment you are completely in the dark about. He may have an entire financial world hidden from you ( bet he does!) & it will become transparent the raw deal he has been planning for you for quite some time. Please don’t trust him, he does NOT have the best interests of you & the children at heart. You need a lawyer to fight in your corner ASAP.

So glad to hear you have got a solicitor. You can bet your bottom dollar there is a pension and most likely a load of hidden assets (as I am finding out right now). My ex earns much more than me and we lived abroad. I imagine there were also bonuses if he works in finance? When you swap form E's I strongly suggest you go through every single transaction and google everything name you don't recognise. Doing this found me at least 2 asset management companies plus a money transferral service on my ex's statements. Who is claiming he has no savings accounts or assets apart from the the house. Don't be afraid to act forensically on the information given before you give it to your solicitor. But obviously outwardly smile and be friendly and amicable. Good luck. And please know, you are not alone in this journey. There are lots of us with similar stories x

My situation is in reverse... My husband brought the kids up from 9 months ish because I was the bigger wage earner and we had twins.. childcare would have wiped his wage out .. so I have paid the majority of the mortage over the years (which is pretty much paid off)... now he wanted a chunk of my pension, so when I spoke to a solicitor (don't forget you can have a half hour of free advice with a lot of them), she advised thatif it went before a judge they wouldn't be interested in who paid what towards the house as we'd been married for quite a while it would just be looked at as a 50/50 split... btw, I wasn't out to rip him off, I try to look at the situation as to how I'd like to be treated if the roles were reversed.
You have brought up the children and more than contributed to household bills.. unless you have some kind of prenup for the money he'd invested pre meetup/marriage then I'd say you'd get 50/50..maybe more for the kids

50/50 of all assets. Maintenance agreement through the courts or in writing. Whatever promises he makes now he will go back on at some stage without solid proof. I've been there.

Plus, from the general vibe of what you have said about him concerning money, his idea of 'above and beyond ' and yours are probably worlds apart.

If this went to court, all assets would be considered marital assets. You, with 3 kids would probably for a clean break, ie no spousal maintenance get at least 70-80% of all marital assets and child maintenance of minimum 25% of his income for all three until the day before they are 21 if in F/T education. (Would have included half his pension also if he had one but could includ any future pension if he gets one)
It’s not like you haven’t tried to make this marriage work, with the financial abuse along with what sounds like gaslighting and emotional abuse, the breakdown is entirely on him. I truly think you will be doing your Children’s lives a horrific injustice if you even consider not considering all marital assets this is not about what’s fair for you. It’s about what’s right for the future and security of your children he was happy to father. The example above I know from experience as this was what my now ex lost to his ex wife and that also included a property his first wife had never contributed to, in fact she had never contributed to and she still walked away with the above...
he was always nasty and mean with money after that... urghh shudder ...

You need a lawyer. Now.

Good luck.

I'm currently going through divorce. My stbxh thinks I'm going to take barely anything from thd house sale or touch his pension, Fool! When we bought our first and subsequent home we both paid mortgage and bills. When I had first child I had to stand down my senior position role and take a less stressful time consiming role as I did bulk of childcare /house keeping. Next move I paid in until second child when I reduced hours and my income paid for kids clothes, presents, our holidays etc he paid mortgage and bills. Now he's saying because I've not paid mortgage/bills for several years I'm not getting anything. My solicitor has said minimum 50%of house, 50% of his enormous pension or bigger share of house. He also stashed money away in accounts that I had no idea about. I tried the amicable thing but he got nasty so I'm all out now for whatever I can get. He forgets that when we married I brought all my furniture, white goods to first home as I had lived alone and that I have purchased nearly all the internal "stuff" that makes a house a home. Unless he had a prenuptial to protect his share tough. And dont think he'll pay for the kids if he finds someone else you'll be chasing him for payment. Get a good solicitor ASAP

Wow, OP, so glad you've seen through his being "agreeable" and got angry. What a testament to the power of Mumsnet! And well done for getting m'learned friends involved.

This bit made me think twice:

*Moving forward, I feel at peace with something like this:

• I gift back the £150,000
• We split all profits fo all assets 70/30 based on loss of my earnings, my trusting of his financial advice that I should "never waste my money on a pension", being forced to live a life beyond my salary means, loss of my job and earning potential and that I will still be doing the majority of child care making it hard (not for the first time) to build up my business.
• That should mean around £210,000 for me / £240,000 for him.*

I've committed the cardinal sin of not RTFT, so I guess others will have said the same, but don't have figures in mind until you have a good idea of the extent of his assets.

Supposing you settled for £210k and it turned out he had £1m in assets? He really sounds to me like someone who's shrewd, and I bet he has assets squirreled away all over the place, including overseas. And if he hasn't got a pension somewhere, possibly several, I'll eat all of my hats. (Footnote: one of my SILs never got round to completing all the financial stuff for many years after she split with her ex, they just split the equity in the house 60/40, but decided she wanted to be divorced a couple of years ago. It turned out he had a pension worth over half a mill, and he had to give her half as she had no pension provision at all. There were other investments as well, he'd worked in the Treasury and was proper canny.)

Now you've got angry, you can start moving towards the next stage: getting even. Your SHL will be invaluable here.

I hope you get every penny you deserve, plus a bit on top for him being sneaky and expecting you to play nice.

When he bought the house, you weren't married so theoretically why should you have any claim on the money he used to pay for a third of it

Because that's what the law says, as I know to my cost. My house was worth approx £120k when I married my ex, so I had about £70k equity. The value had risen to £245k when we finalised, so a little over £200k equity as we had paid off some of the capital.

I had to give him almost £100k, the whole of the value of the property was in the "pot".

He squirreled money, too, during the period between me asking him to leave and it actually getting to court. The "beer and cigs" money he used to take out of the bank in cash went up from £200 every three weeks to £600 a month. The price of beer hadn't gone up that much and his spending habits hadn't changed, I'm bloody sure he was handing cash to his sister to "look after". He'd already "lent" her £6k out of his savings. I found the receipt and checked it against his bank statement. Both transactions were on the same day.

He claimed he'd "forgotten" about the loan, the thick twat.

When my friend divorced she was told the split should be 40/60 in her favour as her earnings potential was lower as she'd taken a career break to raise children

Re maintenance, someone I know didn't trust her loaded ex not to bugger about with CM and do some chicanery re his (huge) earnings so he paid less.

She got a lump sum payment in lieu of maintenance on the condition that it was used to buy property and place it in trust, and that the rental income would provide income for CM, and for theit post-18 education.

They are now the richest 20-somethings I know!

YANBU.
Because you are married, and the legal contract of marriage is that all assets are jointly owned.

I really wish people would understand what marriage is and isn't.

If you go into a marriage contract and you don't like the terms, you need to state that at the outset and get a lawyer to draw up alternative contracts. If you didn't do that, 10 years and 3 children later you don't get to go " oh I don't like the marriage contract terms can we have new ones which will be in my favour?"
Answer: No.

We should start getting people to say 'we are getting a marriage contract' rather than 'we're getting married.'

Less romantic but much clearer about what it really is.

Because you are married, and the legal contract of marriage is that all assets are jointly owned

That's not true of assets gained prior to the marriage (or not in Scotland anyway). My lawyer was quite happy to draw up a will for me that bequeaths my house to my DC. My mortgage was almost fully paid off when I remarried. It belongs to the family, not the marriage.

@OllyBJolly I believe Scotland is different for inheritance and marital assets.

Get a divorce lawyer. End of.

Mine said he'd always provide for our kids. Currently owed over £12k in child maintenance & the CMS are useless. Luckily I got my fair share of assets in the divorce (thanks to my solicitor & barrister) or I'd be in poverty now.

I think if he was a good guy, then he'd be encouraging the OP to make sure she gets proper legal advice to protect her and the children's interests.

The whole "That's ok, you can trust me, you don't need a lawyer" is a massive red flag.

Also, if it ends up getting nasty and he says that's your fault because you were the one who went for legal advice, don't believe him. There are huge stakes here, you'll be utterly crazy not to get legal advice before agreeing to anything.

He keeps saying he wants to keep the lawyers out - what a contradiction to the advice he gets!

Well of course he does. His lawyer previously told him he'd have to give you more than 100K and he doesn't like the sound of that so he is going to try to fob you off with some kind of deal and being amicable.

I bet he's got a load of assets squirrelled away somewhere and I don't believe he hasn't got a pension.

Glad you've got a lawyer. I think it's all very well people trying to divorce without a lawyer but I think that can only work if it's a straightforward split - if people don't have significant savings and a house to sell or if here are no children and both people contributed similar amounts towards a property.
Once children are involved and large amounts of money and one person has had to put their career on hold to raise the family, that's when a lawyer is needed.

Can you afford to take over the mortgage and payments to run the house? If so you and DC can stay in the house until they are 18. Then the house is sold and he gets half the equity minus the years he hasn't lived there.

Re the £150,000. Unless there is some kind of pre nuptial agreement in place, it forms part of the marital pot (although pre nups are a bit of a grey and disputed area). So it's 50/50 as a baseline.

Basically I'd stay in the house if you can as it's unlikely you'd get a reasonable size property for the equity you anticipate which will be big enough for the DCs.

@OllyBJolly But if you hadn't drawn up a will and die intestate, your property will automatically go to your husband.

Can you afford to take over the mortgage and payments to run the house? If so you and DC can stay in the house until they are 18. Then the house is sold and he gets half the equity minus the years he hasn't lived there

Where do the children live at 18? Or are they like the mythical MNers children who were married with a great job and their own house at 18?

Before you agree to anything you need to know his full financial position. There is NO WAY that one property is his only asset if he works in finance.

@LaPampa

Before you agree to anything you need to know his full financial position. There is NO WAY that one property is his only asset if he works in finance.

Especially as the Op said once of his major expenses throughout their marriage has been legal fees.