Would I get the house for now?

[Earlgrey19]

I’m considering divorce. Children are 2 & 5. We own our house outright. I have no income, I gave up work after having DS1. That was a career in which it’s very hard to get a job if you have time out. However I’ve retrained, and I’m in the final stages of getting accreditation in new career and should hopefully be able to get a job in new career within a year, but those jobs tend to be part-time and fairly low income. DH earns around 50k.

My mum thinks I would be able to keep the house until the kids are 18, as that’s what happened in her divorce, but I think things may have changed? For info, I would imagine DH would want kids to stay with him some nights each week.

Any pointers welcome. Thanks.

Not enough info what pensions and savings are there

Ah ok. No savings for either of us: money is all in the house. DS has a pension. I barely have one.

I think unlikely you would get to keep the house if that is the majority of the assets unless he agrees. It depends what you would be left with and whether you could hose yourself. It may also depend on the parenting arrangements

Yes, that’s what I thought. Thanks.

Tbh I think it is probably unlikely unlikely there sizeable pensions that offset the equity

Do you know these ?

It’s also a very long time for your husbands share to be tied up and he’s not a particularly high earner
If you sold and split equity would there be enough to house you both? What if you took say 60/65% etc ? Also a mesher often is not great as it just defers the problem - by then the house value will have gone up, you’ll owe him more , need to raise more capital etc.

You’ll also be expected to work and support yourself especially once your youngest is at school

You might if you get granted a mesher order BUT you would need to be able to afford all the bills including the mortgage by yourself and sell when the youngest is 18 (if you can’t afford to buy your partner out).
Best bet is seek legal advice.

These days in my experience they favour clean breaks instead. House would be sold and then each given appropriate share of assets to house themselves with space for children. Even if you did keep the house you would have to pay mortgage and bills with him paying child support depending on childcare split. I would get some legal advice though

The short answer is that, yes, things have changed.

Remaining in the house may be a possibility, particularly if the ex- supports that option, but if the ex- objects it is becoming rare for such an arrangement to be made. Especially as we're talking about pre-schoolers rather than teens.

Op indicates it’s paid for so no mortgage
So unless large pension to offset this his equity will be tied up for 16 years and he’d need a mortgage yet op has the house

Seems unlikely to me but you need legal advice

Sorry @milly I missed that bit.
I doubt anyone would be happy to wait so long for their equity OP

The option might be there for a shorter period. Until you start working and can get a mortgage that buys him out. If that’s not feasible then the issue is he doesn’t earn enough to meet his owns needs without capital from a sale.

How long marriage? England Scotland?

This matters