Separation and Divorce in Scotland

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So DH and I separated just at the start of lockdown due to his relationship with my child, from another relationship, breaking down. He claims that he hasn't wanted to come home, the past few years have been hell and be doesn't believe it will ever get better.

There are other issues - we don't have many similar interests, he didn't come on a family holiday, sex life has taken a nose dive, arguing constantly. We are different people and probably rushed things too much. I don't see a future and he agrees.

I am the higher earner due to him retraining and constantly changing careers. I currently earn £20,000 more than him but that gap will become smaller the longer he is employed until we are more of less equal (without promotion for either of us). We have one child between us, toddler aged, and due to start nursery in August. Neither of us has any real savings (less than £1000 between us) due to him attending college and retraining. House with a mortgage in both our names. Joint bills include council tax, energy, TV, internet etc and then separate accounts for our own phones, cars. Our wages go in to our own accounts. We don't have large pension pots due to his constant career changes and our ages (I've been professionally qualified for 5 years).

House has around £29,000 of equity in it and we've both contributed fairly equally. He put slightly more in to the deposit, I've paid slightly more to the joint expenses each month for the past two years.

We had previously spoke about how to proceed and basically agreed that, while things are amicable, we would remortgage and I would take on the house independently (all going well, but it should be okay). The remortgaging would be for his half of the equity in the home. Child contact would be sorted around his shifts and facilitating quality time with my other child who has EOW contact with his dad, impossible to say how many overnights per week due to nursery and his changing pattern (could work 12-9 one day, off the next and then 7-12 the following, which would make an overnight for a toddler impossible as he has no childcare). Everything else that is ours is kept ours.

Ideally it would be an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage we would seek without blame being put at anyone's door.

Does this seem like a realistic settlement? Would this take a long time to legally sort? A lot of court time? Court and solicitors fees? Could we agree to this independently and then take into a solicitor to finalise the legal bits?

I'm no lawyer, but I am at the start of the divorce process so have been speaking to my solicitor and reading around the subject so hopefully this will be helpful.

First thing, Irretrievable breakdown, no fault divorce doesn't really exist in the UK at the moment. There is 2 year separation if both parties consent or 5 year separation if either party doesn't consent. There is also the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation bill currently going through parliament. It has completed passage through the Lords and is awaiting a date for the second reading in the Commons but with corona, who knows when that will take place.

Unless you are able to separate for 2 years then you are left with unreasonable behaviour. For that, one party has to say, this is what my spouse does and I consider it unreasonable and cannot be expected to live with it, so there is definitely an element of blame. That said, grounds can be fairly inoffensive and can be worded to take the sting out, and you can show them to him before hand so that he knows what's coming.

Be aware, that if the grounds are too inoffensive and he decides to be awkward and contest you may end up having to do the 5 year separation. There is a famous case about that, but I can't remember the name and need to get back to work, but I hope that's at least a little helpful.

When I spoke to my solicitor before the lockdown, he said that divorces were generally taking around 6 months through the courts at that time and he wouldn't be surprised if it was up to a year by the time lockdown was factored into everything.

Oh, just noticed the Scotland part, maybe all different there, sorry, you may need to ignore all I said.