I was married to my husband for something like 12 years with 2 children and are now divorced.
At the time of divorce, my solicitor advised me against spending money on a consent order because she felt that I wouldn't be able to afford to keep up the mortgage payments by myself anyway. 8 years later, I'm still in the same property and haven't missed one mortgage payment.
I have settled (my responsibility) of the (joint and several) debt which was £33,000 and have continued to make the interest only mortgage payments by myself.
He has remarried and has 2 more children with his new wife. He doesn't my children at all now. He rents a house 2 miles away from us and is self-employed (he works a lot of hours but I don't know how much he earns)
I am a single parent with full time care of my children, claiming tax credits and trying to run a business but not earning any money from it at the moment.
I've just had the house valued at £220,000 and there is a mortgage and secured loan on the property totalling £165,000. After selling costs I estimate the equity to be around £40k.
It took me a while to come to terms with selling the house as I have been there for 15 years and it's the only house my children have known but I now feel that I am strong enough to move on, if finances allow.
Because of the IVA that I had to pay of the debt, my credit rating is extremely poor and having a low income, it will be impossible for me to get my own mortgage without a large deposit.
I paid for an hours consultation with a solicitor who told me that I would be lucky to get a 60/40 split in my favour and really it should be 50/50. I have a nagging feeling that this isn't quite right but I don't want to keep throwing good money after bad paying for solicitors' advice.
I've completed an online divorce settlement calculation and it said that because we were married for 10years+ and have 2 children that live with me full time, then I would be entitled to 90% of any assets but this doesn't seem quite right to me either.
Have any of you been in a similar situation (I doubt it as I think this is quite rare!) or can you offer any advice?