any working mums successfully claimed spousal maintenence?

[ineedagoodsolicitor]

I am going through the early stages of divorce.

I earn approximately 2/3 of what my h does, partly because in a lower paid job but mostly because I work part-time (28 hours a week) to accomodate school runs, after school activities and because I have an extra 4 weeks unpaid annual leave to cover more of the school holidays and days off when the dc are off school ill.

H has been happy for this to be the norm, in fact he would have liked me to have even more unpaid time off with the dc and work less hours per week, the money was not an issue.

Given the economic climate there is unfortunately now no scope to increase back up to full time (an across the board temporary short working week is being considered) and I'm unlikely to land another post where I can dictate the part-time hours and request/be given extra unpaid annual leave.

I will earn considerably less than h therefore for the forseeable future as a result of our joint decision over how much I would work due to being the main childcarer iykwim.

HOWEVER, because I still earn over £2,000 net per month and could support the dc by myself with some CSA contribution I am finding that spousal maintenance is not considered "appropriate/necessary". What will be affected is my ability to change the car when it is becoming unreliable/save for retirement/take the dc abroad to visit my family/undertake any major works required about the house without stressing over the cost.

I earn less than I would have if we had not married and had children while h's earning capacity has increased quite substantially during our marriage, he has had support at home, namely me !

Has anyone in a similar situation successfully obtained spousal maintenance and on what grounds ?

P.S. Yes, I'm do feel greedy and grasping but I'm staring into a much bleaker financial future compared to h's which seems unfair. Had we hired a nanny and kept my career up where it was (which he did not think should happen) I'd have a similar earning capacity to him now.

I don't know the answer but I do feel that you should be able to if non-working wives are able to.

Otherwise you are effectively being penalised for having continued to work, which seems wrong.

(By the way, can I ask what you do that earns over £2k net for 28 hours a week? well done!)

How will the house be divided? Will you get more of a percentage?

Will you get the child benefit and tax credits? And will your ex pay child maintenance?

After all that is there still much of a disparity?

There is going to be financial change, you are going from one home two incomes to two homes two incomes. Your ex will have to pay for somewhere to love as well.

Minipie

Can't say as don't want to out myself but it did involve lots of studying and exams (it is £2k per month btw not per week, although I realise it is still good money). The irony is h is less qualified than me but has worked consistently, no mat leave naturally and earns more pro rata.

Youllskimmer

We are hoping to arrive at an amicable split of the capital assets (minus any debts), property/ investments/pensions based on what we brought into the marriage, what accrued during etc.

It is the lack of spousal maintenance that I am trying to get sorted as I'd prefer a clean break and when we sort out the possibility of spousal maintenence we can work out a capitalisation thereof and adjust the split of assets accordingly instead of actually paying the maintenance.

We don't get tax credits and won't get child benefit once the rules change.

Why are you looking to split what was bought to the marriage and what accrued during the marriage? In England & Wales this might be appropriate for a short childless marriage but when there are children this approach tends to go out the window and a the starting point is to consider how everyone is to housed.

A parent who is to be responsible for housing the children the majority of the time will require a more substantial home. Unless there is a large amount of capital if they earn less their mortgage raising capabilities will be less and they will require a larger share of capital to leave them on a similar financial footing. It then follows that their mortgage payments will be relatively low reducing the need for spouse maintenance whilst the other spouse's mortgage payments will be higher reducing their ability to pay spouse maintenance.

STIDW
I don't know, it was h's suggestion but I'm now coming to the conclusion that he wants to have his cake and eat it. No spousal maintenance, CSA calculated child maintenance (i.e. legal minimum) and pretty much a 50/50 asset split does seem a bit weighted in his favour, given that his monthly outgoings will be considerable less than mine.

If my only possibility of an adjusting factor to take into consideration my restricted earning, capcity being the main care provider (80% down to me post divorce), is a larger share of our assets when we split then what percentage should I ask for ?

We've both just had free half hour outline chats with separate solicitors so far and it seems that his solicitor was far more bullish than mine !

agree with STIDW. housing comes first, the usual considerations are needs (yours are clearly met) compensation and fairness. In a lot of the 'big money' cases (which this probably isn't), ex wives who get primary custody of the children get compensated for loss of earnings etc due to giving up work to have children. It is, as you say, considered unfair for one party to be enriched at the expense of the other particularly if taht other continues to bear the primary costs of childcare and to have to restrict her working hours.

Given your situation I am very surprised at the CSA calculated child maintenance. In 'middle class' divorce cases i.e. where there's more money than the minimum available, this would very rarely be the norm. A judge would take into account a huge list of things including the children's (and your) previous expectations of standard of living etc and whether it would indeed seem fair for your ex to be taking home more money than you in these circumstances- and I would bet that s/he would probably not conclude that in this particular case.

re. percentage of assets increased I'm not certain as I would think your claim would actually be better dealt with through a child or spousal maintenance claim- but certainly you might want to look at claiming 75% with room for negotiation.

(btw I've nevver actually practised as a family lawyer, I'm just a lecturer, so I bow to the experience of practitioners if I'm wrong on any of this...)

Interesting, Allegrageller

H has made it clear he knows what the CSA amount is and that is what he is prepared to pay. Neither of our solicitors mentioned the possibility of this being over-ruled or upgraded by a judge. I'm assuming that as the CSA calculates a % of the h's income this takes into account the fact that if he is a big earner the CM figure is higher than if he earns national average salary level.

Does anyone know if a judge would award anything higher if the h is offering to comply with CSA levels of child maintenance ?

75% of assets would be ease a lot of my worries about life after divorce but I have recently entered a world of ladies who have already divorced and I've not yet come across anyone in circumstances similar to mine who got higher than a 70% share and they usually worked less/earned less than I do.

hi ineed
hmm. I'm just a family law lecturer, and I'm not entirely clear what your husband's income is, but the fairness principle would apply here I'm sure and you are doing 80% of the care- therefore to me the CSA minimum doesn't sound as if it will be the be-all and end-all. (Any actual solicitors may overrule me on that tho).

I think sometimes solicitors expect you to ask first before they ask- your solicitor might well agree that you could get more- ask him/her to go for as much as poss. You're giving up a lot more than he is, long term.

Also, are you expecting to sell the house? If it is the kids' established home, and H can afford a flat should it not be that you keep the house and he retains a charge over it (25%, or more probably 30% as you say).

I had a terrible time with 50:50 custody myself and lost the house but get WAY over the CSA maintenance from my (wealthy) ex husband. This was, however, partly as a way to 'pay me off' and stop me bringing a case to get the house back. I always thought that if I'd had more than 50% custody, I'd never have lost the house as he could easily afford to have bought another one. (As it was, he didn't and I'm in rented accommodation...oh the joys of divorce eh? ;))

allegrarageller

We shouldn't need to sell the house and yes it is the dc's established home plus all the pets !

I'm hoping it won't come to a charge over the house as H should be able to afford a mortgage on somewhere locally, slightly smaller, not that small by many people's standards, or may not even need a mortgage if he is practical about the matter but knowing him he will feel hard done by if he doesn't have a home of the same size or larger than the children and I do. If he decides to take a dream job in London or Edinburgh which he has talked about several times it will cost him considerably more but I'm basing everything on the reasonable assumption that he stays local for access.

How do you agree custody ? I'm kind of assuming he'll have no more time for the dc post divorce than he does now. I've assumed he has them for 4 weeks holiday each year and 1 night each weekend, this totalling 20% of the year.

I'm wary about him handing over the money each month without the power struggle of him "forgetting" and me having to ask each time. Have you had any problems ?

We are trying to assess the situation and get something down on paper before we formally appoint a solicitor each in order to save on costs. That's the theory but in my heart of hearts I know that I will need to use a solicitor sooner rather than later to keep everything rational and properly controlled/documented once a 70/30 split is suggested to him. I fear he is still assuming 50/50 asset split.

Sorry to hear you had a horrible experience re custody. Can Child support be counted as income if applying for a mortgage ?

Many mortgage companies including mine won't consider maintenance as income. Some will but you have to look around. Mine said they wouldn't "because non-payment is so common" - on the phone of course. You should apply for child tax credit if you are on £2000 a month (though I agree that's a good wage!) - you'll get a little bit and that will up your mortgage income. It's backdated 3 months, too and doesn't include maintenance. In terms of custody, when you put in your form for the family court they will ask who the children live with - it's you, even if they stay with their dad one or two nights a week and every holiday. Neither of you need to get into custody if you're both happy with the access you both have to the kids (talking about regular access not if you'd rather he looks after them on a friday when his night is saturday & you argue about it - that doesn't count). Normally it's either joint custody or agreed contact ie 2 days a week. Think maybe when Allegra was talking about you doing 80% of the care she meant that you should get financial split based on 80% of care rather than either 80% custody or (sadly) 80% capital split. Sorry Allegra if you did mean either of those. You need both of you to get form Es from the family court which is financial disclosure. My soon to be x and I wasted masses of money before we got ours. Mediation about money often won't work till both of you have given financial disclosure.
H's solicitor is likely to push H to 50/50 capital split even if H wants it now.

Aghh the Edinburgh thing just sunk in - they have a different legal system to England & Wales. If he's just mentioning Edinburgh as a possible city like Manchester or Cardiff or London, fine. If he has real professional or cultural links with Scotland you will need to run that possibility past a lawyer when you see one. I had a friend who got completely messed up in terms of custody & his maintenance when his wife moved to Scotland.

We went about 60/40 (in my favour) with no spousal maint and child maint on CSA guidelines.

Circumstances similarish to yours.
I do 20 hours a week and probably net a similar hourly amount.
Ex earns around 3 times what my full-time salary would be.

I haven't read anything that would indicate you would be awarded more than CSA guidelines on that level of imcome - has anyone got any links on this?

In some ways I wanted to go for more, and to consider spousal maint. In other ways why should he continue to support my lifestyle.
(but then we aren't actually divorced yet - maybe I should reconsider!).

access - I assumed my ex would have no more time for them after than before (i.e. as little as possible it seemed) but he really stepped up to the mark and has them overnight once every week and for half of every weekend, plus around half of most holidays excluding the summer when (so far) he has had about 10 days (plus all normal mid-week and weekend time).

Our child maint is based on 50% (2 children) and 5/7th (2 nights a week with him)

I think a lot of men see their role in the family as the breadwinner and the women as the carer and a divorce shakes them out of this so they become more hands on after a split so don't be surprised if your ex does want more involvement.

And surely that is not a bad thing

opps - that should be 20%

Squirrel, I'm not saying that your agreed deal is a bad one - 60/40 in return for clean spousal break may be ok. H was going for 50/50 capital & clean break before I lost job last year. But please don't think your H is just supporting your lifestyle, he's supporting his kids' lifestyle too. It's great he's seeing so much of them now, but (don't know how old they are) if they're spending 5/7 of their time in your home, quality of food, days out, satellite tv access, friends round to stay etc. will and does affect them and will do more and more as they get older however reasonable they are - and the csa payment isn't proportional in real terms for a relativly high earner like your, OP & my Hs. Also, I don't know but maybe is the reason you work 20 hours a week and earn much less than he does an hour because you were doing the vast majority of the childcare before he left?

I know that the child maint supports the children not me - he isn't supporting my lifestyle as I haven't gone for spousal maint (although to an extent he is supporting my lifestyle as the high level of child maint enables me to continue working 20 hours rather than having to increase that).

Yes, I could probably go for more, say 70/30 - but a massive part of me feels that we built up our joint wealth together through a number of factors, including both of us working, a rental property and an inheritance (his side) and that as that wealth was sufficient to enable us both to take from it then it wouldn't have been very reasonable to take more than a fair share of that.
Ok, maybe given that I have the kids I should have a larger fair share - who knows.

Just a few points.

Unless the non resident parent has a net income of more than £2k/week the court normally has no power to impose child maintenance. CM can be agreed as part of the overall settlement and documented in the final order settling the finances, although after one year either party can apply to the CSA for an assessment and the order ceases to have any effect.

If the NRP's income exceeds the CSA capped amount of £2k the court can make an order for top-up payments and it makes sense to deal with all the CM in a court order rather than dealing with the CSA and the courts for two different payments.

Some mortgage companies will take maintenance into account if the maintenance is included in a court order. HOwever, the CSA don't have a particularly good record at collecting and enforcing child support so lenders tend not to take CM into account as income but will take into account spouse maintenance.

With regard to Scotland the law is indeed different here. If your husband should move to Edinburgh and apply for divorce here first the principles under Scottish law would apply to the financial settlement. This is arguably less favourable for people in your situation, although it does depend upon all the specific circumstances.There was a case a couple of years ago when a husband duped the wife into moving up to Scotland and then once they had lived here long enough to divorce he applied for the divorce leaving her financially disadvantaged. As far as the children are concerned the courts in England & Wales retain jurisdiction as long as their habitual residence is there.

My suggestion would be see a solicitor early on to find out where you stand and what options there are given your particular circumstances.

Sorry, just two more things.

In Scotland inheritances aren't considered matrimonial property which again could leave you at a disadvantage should your husband move and apply for divorce here.

The other thing is that in E&W judges ratifying the agreement settling the finances are duty bound to ensure the agreement is "fair" ie complies with s25 Matrimonial Causes act 1973 and other law. It isn't possible to just read the rules to understand them so seeing a solicitor early on can help you stay on the straight and narrow so that terms don't have to be renegotiated because they don't comply with the law.

BTW to avoid any doubt I'm not a solicitor and I am not touting for business.

Could you look at it that you are benefiting from the work the two of you put in to his career growth in that the child maintenance payments are high?

It is tragic that so many women find themselves in this position but I think spusal maintence was done away with on the whole because women no longer have to stay at home. ALthough the decision was joint and I'm sure you never expected to divorce, it was ultimately your decision to for-go your career to care for the children. It sounds incredibly harsh but the fact you could end up worse off if you split needed to be thought of at the start.

It's so sad that so many women enable their husbands to build a fabulous career, and end up without any of the benefit.

Saying that though, if you are spliting assets etc, and these have been bought with his earnings and inheritence etc.. is that not your share of what you have put in to the relationship?

Sorry i've just noticed this is in 'divorce and seperation' I'm sure you're canvassing intelligent responses rather than emotional ones.

I'm sorry, ignore me. It's late.

All the best.

Squirrel - I meant that maybe you should be going for spousal maintenance as well since you have had a less lucrative career as Allegra suggested, though if you get a 60/40 capital split that may make up for that. Name change I can't imagine us posting on this thread without getting emotional but I do think that if you support your husband's family & in my case, give up m,y career to move abroad so he can work full time then, if it were a partnership, it should be a split based on needs in the future not just on the past. It seems a hybrid law and just costs a bomb.

I do know what you are saying, and my feelings go both ways on it.
Yes, to an extent my sidelining of my career allowed him to put in the hours that he did on his post children.
But there are a lot of factors involved in that on both sides.

As far as I know spousal maintenance ceases to apply once the woman remarries (or even gets a partner). If I ever divorced, i would not want that condition to hang over me. Clean break (with child maintenance) all the way!