Deducting mortgage payment from child maintenence?

[sallysm]

Does anyone have any experience whereby, the amount of CM they receive, is reduced because your Ex is paying the mortgage on your behalf?

For example, suppose after divorce, I get the home, including all equity within it and for the future. (ie, He no longer has a stake in the home)

Then factor in that I cannot for a very long time afford to take over the mortgage, but I am told that through universal credit, child maintenance and if I get myself a little job, I will be able to afford to reimburse my Ex, for the mortgage contributions he is liable to make to the bank.

However, for whatever reason, I don't reimburse him for those payments he makes. So he starts deducting the mortgage cost from what he pays as child maintenance (if not via the CMS service) or (if through the CMS service) he applies to vary the CMS amount, stating that he is paying the mortgage on my behalf, ontop of child maintenance. And that because he thinks I should be reimbursing him the monthly mortgage cost, and that he has no equity to gain from the house, then he has a right to deduct the mortgage cost from the CM amount.

Does anyone have any similar experience in how such a scenario might be treated?

I understand on the CM website, it says:

If you are a paying parent you can ask for certain expenses, which reduce your gross income, to be taken into account. These are called 'special expenses' and are for making payments on a mortgage for the home you and the receiving parent used to share – the receiving parent and the child or children must still live in the home and you must have no legal or ‘equitable’ interest in it

No the court won't see that as reasonable.

There will be a division of equity and then an expectation that you live within your means. CM is provided purely based on his income.

Spousal maintenance is rare nowadays and only applies for those with very high incomes.

Your expectations are unrealistic.

What are the assets available to share? Thus generally includes
Equity in house
Pensions
Savings
Shares
Vehicles
Particularly high value items (art, jewellery etc)

Expect 50:50 each. You would probably want more equity than pension if you could afford to take on mortgage and manage to keep the house. But from your comments above that sounds unlikely.

On rare occasions people may have mesher agreements where equity in the house is not split until after the children are 18 but in those situations the person staying in the house pays the mortgage and both of them receive the agreed split if equity when the house is sold when the Children are 18. Normally only considers if children are older as it's unreasonable to wait many years to receive your fair share of assets.

Why would it be fair he pays a month for you on a house you then Ian which prevents him buying again ! That’s deluded and won’t happen

Plus on his salary he won’t be expected to pay spousal or likely none of your mortgage either !

@sallysm

Hang on a sec - if he paid the mortgage for me, and paid CM, I'm sure he would still have enough to rent a place for the next 15 years, even if he would be prevented from getting a mortgage for himself. (despite mortgage monthly cost being less than rent). If that was put as a case to court, would they see that as reasonable?

Bare in mind, it's not my fault that even if I did reimburse him the monthly cost for what he pays for the mortgage, that the mortgage company won't take that into account if he comes to apply for a mortgage for a place for himself.

No the court will not see that as reasonable. Clean breaks are preferred and courts don't make moral judgements on divorces or division of assets.

The courts will expect you to fund your own lifestyle. Both of you need to be housed, so they won't make him pay the mortgage for 15 years if that means he can't get another mortgage and will be forced to rent.

The fact he left you is irrelevant. If you can't afford the mortgage on your own, usually you'll be told to sell, split the equity and put that towards your housing needs.

One option is a mesher order which means that the house is sold later and the equity is split then. However he will still have an interest in the property and you'll owe him the equity split at that point - including his share of increased value in the house.

No court is going to tie him to a mortgage for 15 years when he is not getting any of the equity and is also having to rent. If he's only on £40k you are very unlikely to get spousal.

The fact is you will both have to cut your cloth and you will be expected to stand on your own two feet. If you can't take over the mortgage, the most likely outcome is selling the house.

It's not his job to fund you anymore. Although he will be expected to pay child maintenance.

Court might require the house to be sold because you cannot afford it and he earns too little for spousal. And what you are proposing is selfish and clearly a punishment for him leaving you.

You will get child maintenance. Which looks to be about £350 a month.

Wow this thread is an eye opener. People really think someone else should fund their life, at the expense of their own?! OP - you should keep and own a house whilst your ex pays for it and has nothing? REALLY???

And "a little job"?? 😤😤 How about "a job that I can pay my own way in life with"

FFS stuff like this makes me a grey

To be fair I imagine at this stage in a relationship breakdown it is really hard having to come to terms with a radical change in standard of living and its natural to be resentful about it.

But the courts don't punish marriage breakdown. They aim to support fair division of assets. Generally fair division leaves both people feeling that they didn't get as much as they should have/could have.

Ultimately if you are adversarial about it the the lawyers are the ones that end up with the money that you're arguing about.

Write all your assets and debts down, add them up and divide by 2 and that's your starting point.

I'm sorry, it'll be hard on you but you need to start being more realistic OP. But once you have got a job you'll probably be entitled to some in work benefits that will help.

There is life after divorce and you'll do better once you get past the anger and get on with planning.

You've got kids in common so there will be times that you will need to be together throughout the rest of your life for the good of your children. One day you'll be attending their graduations, weddings, their kids birthday parties and you need to be able to tolerate each other so enjoy your anger for a bit and then get on with being happy you're no longer with someone that doesn't deserve you.

OP, a few questions for you -

What is your stbx income (gross)
How many dc, and their ages
Length of marriage/cohabitation
Reason you're not working, and how long you've been out of work - can you get back on the career ladder?
Any other assets - pensions, savings, art collections etc.

All these factors can influence the outcome at a financial hearing.

Unless there is evidence of extreme financial abuse or the ex having ridiculously high earnings (thus huge disparity in earning potential that can't be negated via you getting back into work), the starting point is 50/50. It doesn't matter who left who, or if he's sleeping with your sister, or any one of a million morally wrong reasons, the starting point is 50/50. Both parties must be able to house themselves affordably, and both must seek to maximise their income potential ie working. There will be some benefits available if your income is below a certain point, and maintenance if you have the majority of child residence. However many lenders do not use benefits or CMS in affordability calculations.

Mesher orders (where in your case the ex stays on the mortgage whilst you live there until dc reach 18) are vanishingly rare as one party is inevitably crippled financially and liable for the mortgage on the former marital home, as well as to fund a roof above their own and dcs heads.

Unfortunately I think you need to go back to the beginning and have a rethink. Yes it's devastating to consider that yours and your dc home may have to be sold. Can you comfortably downsize?

So, so many of us have been where you are. I know I have. It's shit to think someone else has blown up your world and can just move straight on. But no, they cannot be expected to support you indefinitely.

You would be better off moving out, him moving back in and buying you out. You go on to rent somewhere that universal credit would give you a contribution towards (depending on what savings you would have after being bought out) and him still paying you child maintenance surely? But I agree with the masses that your request is unreasonable.

Does anyone have any experience with CMS service and their views on deducting mortgage from it? I understand this could be done if you have an informal arrangement, but maybe less so if its done through CMS. And on what basis they'd decide to stop me getting full CMS, instead of reducing it by mortgage paid on my behalf, if he tells them he can't afford to get a mortgage himself. Though to reiterate, its not my fault if lenders are tight where Exs should be paying both.

Do CMS look at if I can afford to get by with effectively reduced CMS, if they let him apportion part of it to mortgage payments?

The CMS amount is the total amount he is expected to pay into your finances. If you want it to be paid on mortgage so be it but you can't have it twice. You either get the money in your pocket to spend or you can choose to have it paid against a specific bill but not both.

CMS is not calculated on your needs, it is only calculated on his salary.

What you're asking for is not reasonable I'm afraid. You will get the allocated % if you use the CMS service. If you have an informal arrangement he may choose to give you more than the minimum amount but can revert to CMS amount at any point.

He won't be made to pay your mortgage and CMS too.

I have to say I think your whole stance on this is pretty unreasonable.

Though to reiterate, its not my fault if lenders are tight where Exs should be paying both.

It’s only you that thinks he should be paying both, though. He, the court and the world at large don’t agree.

And no, CMS are very much not in the business of caring whether recipients can afford to get by on the amount of maintenance they get!

A while back there was a poster who kept asking about divorce and spousal maintenance on a relatively low salary. No matter what they were told they kept on insisting they deserved it. This has the same feel about it.

Can you not work full time or sell the house? I wouldn't want the roof above my head to be in the hands of my ex. He could stop paying and cause you a lot of stress at any time. Do you also expect him to pay for a new roof, boiler etc. If they need replacing?

@Idontgiveagriffindamn

A while back there was a poster who kept asking about divorce and spousal maintenance on a relatively low salary. No matter what they were told they kept on insisting they deserved it. This has the same feel about it.

Yeah, same poster.

OP your bitterness over the end of your marriage is blinding you to reality. Why don't you get some proper legal advice instead of posting on here then ignoring what people are actually saying to you?

@MiddleParking thanks. In that case there’s no way the OP is going to take on board any of the comments from other people.

Look, I don't want to annoy about this. And I have read all your posts, sorry if I can't reply to them all.

The reason I haven't sought legal advice, is that first, I wanted to hear from people who had actual experience with court decisions and CMS, rather than asking a solicitor who charges alot, and may well string me along telling me what I want to hear, up until the point of getting something very different at the end by a court.

So from what I understand, having read all your posts carefully, is that things would go something like this - please correct me where I'm wrong.

1. Me and the stbx (or the court) decide on some share of assets (home, savings, pension)
2. I stay in the house until our young child is 18+. Then house gets sold, depending on if he's ordered to get any equity from it.

then:

1. I apply for CM through CMS.
2. CMS asks for his gross, and he starts paying me a fixed % of it
3. I get by, on CM, apply for UC, and if I can find one, get a little job to top myself up.
4. I (if ordered by the court) reimburse him each month for the mortgage cost that he pays on my behalf to the bank (as I'm unable to take over the mortgage. He remains the sole person liable)
5. He then applies for a mortgage of his own. The bank says sorry, we don't count the mortgage reimbursements from your Ex as income, as such because you're paying full CM and have an existing mortgage, you can't borrow enough on a new mortgage to get your own place. (Not my problem if banks think like that)

OR is it that at point 4, CMS also ask if he's paying the mortgage for me, and if so, they deduct his payments from his gross, and tell him to pay less CMS. At which point (7), he goes to the bank to apply for his own mortgage, says he's paying an existing mortgage but reduced CM, and they say ok, you can borrow more to get a place for yourself.

Baring in mind I found this on the CMS website:
'If you are a paying parent you can ask for certain expenses, which reduce your gross income, to be taken into account. These are called 'special expenses' and are for making payments on a mortgage for the home you and the receiving parent used to share – the receiving parent and the child or children must still live in the home and you must have no legal or ‘equitable’ interest in it' (note: no 'equitable' interest!)

If anyone can correct me on anything wrong with steps 1 to 7 I'd appreciate it.

The reason nobody wants to advise you is because everybody thinks you are being unreasonable. You should seek legal advice.

You might not get to stay in the house. You might have to sell it now if that is what your ExH wants. Then divide the assets.

Why aren't you paying directly to the bank?
Why are you only getting a "little job" ?
Surely you want a "big job "so in future you can buy your own house?
You won't get cm or aNything when kids older so what are you going to live off?
Your reimbursement to him is not his income
Anything can happen in next year's eg his earnings
Why can't you sell up now and split equity now?
You could rent with dc and claim hb around your "little job "

1. Me and the stbx (or the court) decide on some share of assets (home, savings, pension) - the court will have to agree that the division is appropriate if you or stbx have asked for the court to adjudicate on finances. The court wont stamp an order that is wholly unfair
2. I stay in the house until our young child is 18+. Then house gets sold, depending on if he's ordered to get any equity from it. - this is very unlikely to happen. You don't have enough joint assets from what you've said for you to be able to afford to keep the house. So the house will be sold and you will receive a share of joint assets. Or your stbx may buy you out of the house as it sounds like it may be possible for him to meet the affordability requirements for this. You will probably need to rent as you don't have a job and therefore wont qualify for a mortgage

then:

1. I apply for CM through CMS. - or your stbx provides you month CMS in line with the calculator results. It costs both you and him if you go via the CMS so if he's willing to pay CMS then do it seperately

A court is not going to award you all the equity and for him to carry on paying the mortgage unless you have £100k in savings that he's getting instead....

You need to readjust your expectations, you have been told this many times but are not listening.

You will get a few hundred pounds per month CMS only, no mortgage paid, no nothing else from stbx