My husband left last week and he thinks his rent will come over our mortgage?

[Coronasaurus]

That basically, I've always been a sahm and he's always paid our joint mortgage. But he's now saying that when he finds a flat, as long as he can pay that nothing else matters 😕, even if it means me losing the house. He says that's ok as the kids can then go live with him! Please help? Can I stay in my home ?

@Pelleas you need to stop believing everything you read online

For the op, to apply for UC online go to www.gov.uk/universal-credit

I know you’ve been through a divorce but it was YOUR divorce and to speak so authoritively when you met what 2x with your sol (if you paid then £600 in total cant have been more!) Is... daft.

It is definitely good advice to work full-time now and pay Into a pension. It will be harder the older you get and if you remain single into retirement you need to work out what you will be living on.

FYI OP wouldnt be entitled to 30 hours free childcare, its 15 hours until the term after the childs 3rd birthday

Re the universal credit, perhaps there is a disabled child? My dc are classed as ‘severely disabled’ but my friends and family wouldn’t know that. Mind you, I wouldn’t tell them what benefits I get anyway.

@Thingsdogetbetter

I think pp may have misunderstood her friend's finances and now everyone is derailing with shock at the generosity of the UC system. (Not even the Daily Fail has ever accused UC of being overly generous!) I've a friend in a very similar situation. Works pt and has three kids. She has about £1.8k each month, but that is with both her pt wage and UC together. Not solely UC with her wage as extra.

not to mention the deductions that will be taken off for the working taper and childcare costs will need to be paid from it

@Hercules12

As a pp said this is why women should never give up working and become financially reliant on a man. I'd seen this happen so have always worked full time either earning more or the same as exh. Ive also seen the results of women not paying into a pension so made sure I have. Lo and behold ex left after 24 years of marriage as had midlife crisis and fortunately financially I'm fine. Do get a full time job op and take control of your and your dc future. They need a dependable financially stable parent.

This. With bells on.

OP this is a really tough situation and I feel it for you but doing the quick mental maths based on what you’ve said I highly doubt you’ll be able to afford to stay in your home. It’s not just the mortgage it’s all the other outgoings, our mortgage is £1050 but our council tax, utilities and basic bills take it to at least £1700 per month just to be able to live in our house. That’s Excluding car costs, WiFi and entertainment.

It is unfair that your life is facing upheaval but it’s equally wrong for a person to be trapped in a relationship because they physically can not afford to leave. Being a SAHP is precarious at the best of times and certainly doesn’t offer any guarantee’s. What matters is that the DC have a safe and happy place to live, whether that’s a 5 bed owned family house or a two bed rented flat.

I would push for 50/50 custody of kids and insist that DH cover 50% of childcare (this will allow you to work during that time and with two kids will no doubt be much more expensive that the maintenance you would receive in its place).

The hardest thing will be making the mental switch from functioning as a SAHP in a partnership, to a co-parent with your own best interests in mind.

Op, go to entitled.org.uk to calculate what are you entitled to in your current situation, then also calculate how much you would be getting if you were working for at least 16 hours a week, then also calculate how much you would be getting if you were renting (housing benefit only applies for rents).

Get yourself to Amazon and order The Which Guide to Divorce, read the chapters that apply to you and then, only then, book free appointments with solicitors. There is no point of wasting a free half an hour appointment that would cost over £100 to ask very basic questions whose answers you could have found for free elsewhere. Use the free appointments for the tricky advice specific to your case.

I know that it is a very confusing time and as such you would like someone to tell you what to do or what was the best option or likelihood of that option happening (I certainly felt like that) but there is important to accept NOBODY has those answers, you will need to make the decisions, the solicitors will gently lead you into one position or another but there are no guarantees (and much money to be spend).

Keep you head cool, do your reading and never allow yourself into self pity. This is not about who is right and what’s fair but about building the best base for your future life.

Look on entitled to website put don’t forget single person council tax discount Put in uc and child maintenance claim find a solicitor

Look for a job and child care he doesn’t have to pay the mortgage but if it’s not paid both your credit ratings will be affected which may cause problems renting in future

Don’t listen to people on here telling you to sell your house and that you won’t get any maintenance for yourself. Whilst these things may turn out to be so no-one knows enough about your circumstances to say.

Arrange a mortgage holiday if you can. Tell your lender you are separating. See if you can pay interest only once the mortgage holiday is over. Just until things are sorted out. So you don’t fall into arrears.

As soon as you start divorce proceedings you can issue an application for interim maintenance. So get on and do that. The courts take a broad brush to that interim sort of order and the person paying often ends up paying a bit more than they wot is have had to had they agreed something.

Go and see a decent solicitor if you can possibly afford it. Get the best value from this you can. Have all your facts and figures worked out before you go. Be ready to tell them what you’d like to achieve. Get advice on whether it is feasible and his to go about it.

If you can find a way to manage the mortgage payments yourself then you may well get to keep the house at least for some years to come.

Best of luck.

But if the thing is broken, surely people should be angry when the system leaves people in poverty, and not bawling into their copy of the Daily Mail when a parent and his/her family have enough to live on?

I think it's very much a Mumsnet thing to describe incomes of £40k + as if it's the bare minimum needed to get by. Yes, the benefits budget needs to be larger, but it doesn't help if what there is is so unevenly spread.

you need to stop believing everything you read online

There wouldn't be much point in taking part in a discussion forum if I assumed bad faith in every post describing something that seemed unreasonable. I don't think anyone 'in the know' has come along to correct that post yet. If it's bollocks, then it's bollocks, fair enough.

You're jointly and severably liable unless one of you declares bankruptcy

I think it's very much a Mumsnet thing to describe incomes of £40k + as if it's the bare minimum needed to get by. Yes, the benefits budget needs to be larger, but it doesn't help if what there is is so unevenly spread.

I disagree. Two incomes of £20k for a family of four is the square root of fuck all, even outside the MN middle class bubble. I recognise that people do get by on less but it ain't much of an existence. And why should single parent families only expect to have the 'bare minimum to get by'?

I certainly won’t be telling my daughter to never rely on a man financially.

If she loved and trusts her husband and actively wants to stay at home with her children - then it could be just perfect for her and her family.
It’s what I did. And I loved. Totally financially reliant on my husband.

We divorced. He is a high earner. I receive CM and SM, a bit of UC top up plus my part time salary.

What I WILL encouraging is for her to complete all her professional exams before giving up work.

I had completed all my professional exams and I was in a good job when I gave it up.

Because I have that experience and very well respected qualification (alongside degree etc), I found getting employment 9 years after I left it relatively easy. So many Big employers Are looking to show support for Professional Returners

If you’re not together anymore he doesn’t have to continue to pay for everything for you, so the most likely scenario is that you’ll need to sell unless you can afford to buy him out.

You can work full time, OP, it doesn’t have to be part time, and that will give you a lot more money.

Sell the house and use some equity to buy somewhere, start job hunting. This is why I'll never be a stay at home mum.

@Pelleas
It’s easy enough to work out a genuine UC calculation- the calculators are provided for you on Gov.uk

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t!

Like I said I work in UC, I have the spent the last 18 months looking through and giving advice on numerous claims on a daily basis.

But you’re choosing to believe the ‘my friend said’ post.

I think some people enjoy getting all outraged at benefit claimants- nothing beats a good scapegoat 🙄

I think it is highly unlikely you will get tricky advice specific to your case from a free half hour solicitor appointment
They are really a marketing opportunity and are used to get business for the solicitor and for each party to see if they can work together
You do need the best legal advice
I can't see you managing to keep the house but the sooner you find that out the better
It must all be a terrible shock but you need to look to the future ,get a job,and believe in yourself

I think it is highly unlikely you will get tricky advice specific to your case from a free half hour solicitor appointment

I'm not sure about that. I'm a lawyer (not in family law) and do regular free half-hours. It's not really fair to say they are marketing opportunities: of course you hope that work will follow, but if it doesn't, you've done your good deed for the day and everyone goes away happier (depending on the advice, obvs).

Obviously anything you glean is going to be a bit off-the-cuff, but half an hour can be long enough to get the general heft of even something quite complex. And the situation the OP is describing doesn't sound particularly knotty.

And as for this... get yourself free half hour legal.

No decent solicitor will offer this. Seriously

I do think the days of spousal maintenance have gone
Which I think is very hard on SAHMs whose husbands leave them
In a wider context it is better for women not to be dependent on men

OP, my friend’s dh did exactly the same thing when he left her. He rented a flat and told her that he wasn’t going to pay the mortgage at all from now on as he needed to pay for his own flat and furnish it with leather recliners and chrome.

Then he wanted half the value of the house.this was all in the first week after he left.

She got a solicitor. A proper one who specialises in divorce not a free half hour one like ‘there’s some odd advice on here’ ScubaDive recommends and applied for universal credit.

She had an extremely difficult few months. Her parents had to lend her money to pay the mortgage and of course she was dealing with the fall out with her dc. However having the right legal advice has helped her assert herself with her dh. She was able to tell him that they would sell the house and he could have half in 16 years when their dd is 18.

Sols offering free half hours need more work

Good sols come from recommendations. Both mine and my ex husbands did. Both superb.

Same as with sister and my aunt. All came from recommendations.

No free half hours! You wouldn’t get a free half hour from a nail technician. Why would you from a decent solicitor?!

And as for this... get yourself free half hour legal.
No decent solicitor will offer this. Seriously

I'm HoD at a city firm, @Ataddicted. I did two yesterday (over the phone, obvs). With respect, you're talking shite.