child support, spousal maintenence. need some advice

[Neverendingnappies]

H and i are looking at splitting. we have been living together 17 years, married 12. We have 3 dc's. 4yo, 2yo and 8 months. We have a house in which we have about 50% equity worth about £500k if we sold it tomorrow.

For the last two years i have been a SAHM but am about to go back to work 5 days a week. I am going to start in mid june. THe cheapest childcare option for us with the 3 kids was to hire a nanny which we have just done.

I have been crunching numbers since the split started to look like reality and could use some advice. If we sold the house i figure we would split the equity 50/50 giving me a £150k deposit for a new house. In my region, to buy another property to house us all i would be looking at around £400k so i would have a fairly large mortgage to service and try to pay for the kids childcare as well. My salary wont stretch that far. Not and eat too. H's minimum child support would be £600 per month which would help but it would still be extraordinarily tight.

So i wondered if on top of the child support i could apply for spousal support to top up his contribution to the childcare which is £1750 per month. Would i be completely unreasonable to expect an equal contribution to childcare costs on top of his minimum childcare contribution?

ALso, does anyone have any experience of Mesher Orders? in an ideal world, i would like to take over the mortgage on the house and delay its sale until my youngest is at least in secondary school I have read a bit about them online but wondered how likley they are to be granted given it would make moving on financially difficult for my potentially stbxh.

Sorry no advice but I am in a similar situation - h adamant that he will only pay CSA calc figure and that everything including childcare should be included. I am also going back to work full time in June as a result of the split to ensure a better life for me and DCs so I will also be hiring a Nanny which is a big expense incurred only due to changes as a result of the split. I suggested we pay towards Nanny in proportion to our salaries which seemed fair, but he went mad at the suggestion I be asking for anything at all on top of CSA (which only covers 1/3 of what we spend on house and kids). We ideally wanted to sort this without lawyers but I now can't see any alternative but to take all the figures to someone to look at.........

I don't know how it is worked out, but would think it likely that with 3 young children ,if you are the RP, and have taken a career break (so not been earning/able to contribute to a pension, had future earnings compromised because of career break, and earn less than XH), then you should get more than 50% of the house and maybesome spousal maintenance (depending on what agreement you come to).

It is, I believe all taken into consideration.