What's a fair split?

[callingtimethistime]

What would be a fair split for this unmarried couple?

13 year relationship. Two school age DC. Low income family, with no savings or pensions but one significant asset (house). It's a relatively amicable split, neither partner has treated the other badly.

Partner A:
Owns house outright (no mortgage). Came into relationship with a mortgage. Bought family home outright with equity from 1st property, 10 years ago.

Works a job on relatively low wage but earns more money than B. Pays all regular bills except one & majority of household expenses
Significant debts (all on manageable payment plans).

Partner B:
Works on own business. Business not doing well partly as Partner B can't put in enough time in due to disability / health concerns. As a result, earns significantly less than partner A, not enough to live on.

Consistently pays one bill, £200 a month. Usually puts most of rest money into family pot, but it's a relatively small amount.
No debt, no assets.

Both put approx same amount of time into childcare. Partner B does most of the housework.

Legally Partner B doesn't own anything. It's expected that Partner B will leave the family home, as it's owned by A. However neither partner A nor B think it's fair that Partner B leaves the relationship with nothing, no money at all. Partner B will need money for a rental deposit for example.

What would be fair to both A & B? )And the DC).

If they were married, how would it be split?

(I know the answer to these two questions might not be the same!)

WWYD? Thanks.

@RandomMess

If you were married eventually partner B would get some share of the joint new assets and even pensions would be taken into account.

Pensions? What pensions?!

We're both self employed, on a low income, no spare money for pensions. I know that's a terrible position, but that's the reality.

And, we're not married. Never had any plans to be.

It seems like B will suffer and if that impacts their ability to coparent then it is not a good situation.

No, it's not. But currently the situation is affecting Partner B's health.

Both of us, and the DCs, would be better off, mentally and emotionally, in the long run if we could afford to run separate houses.

It's looking so far like it's impossible. I don't know where that leaves us.

I think you need to run figures through entitled to with one child each. One renting one not and see that it says it may be similar to know tbh.

Do you have childcare costs?

you don't want to hear it and you dream that it's impossible but the house needs to be sold, joint debt paid off and the remaining sum split equally between the two.
starting over will be very difficult especially for partner B with a disability.

We do send our DC to a CM at the moment, but we both work flexible hours so, although the ideal is to keep on with the CM, we don't have to.

Since you are still friends can you rent a room and do the childcare 50/50 with one adult looking after the kids at the main house two weeks of the month? With the future goal being to eventually getting another main house set up?

Looks like you’re realising that splitting up is going to be financially tough on you both. One household with 2 incomes will be better off than stretching to run two households. Not saying that it’s not the best thing for you all but money is going to be an issue especially for partner B if they have health issues which prevent earning more money and also need to pay for housing.

What do you think is a fair amount to give? Whilst legally A is entitled to keep the house and not give B anything, it does seem morally unfair. Saying that, I did exactly that when I split with my ex H as I had the kids 100% of the time and he left the country.

@fallfallfall

you don't want to hear it and you dream that it's impossible but the house needs to be sold, joint debt paid off and the remaining sum split equally between the two. starting over will be very difficult especially for partner B with a disability.

And where will the DC live?!

Half the house minus half the debts and moving costs is something like £90k each.

I've just put that into Rightmove. There isn't a single 3 bed house at that price in our entire county, let alone in this town.

Besides, neither partner would accept this. Partner B is unsure about accepting any money in the first place and wouldn't make the DC lose their home.

Can you officially split up but stay in the same house while you sort things out? So could the DC share a room, then A&B have a room each?

Does B have any capacity to get a job PT and run business PT?

This is difficult.

@Keepitnerdy

Since you are still friends can you rent a room and do the childcare 50/50 with one adult looking after the kids at the main house two weeks of the month? With the future goal being to eventually getting another main house set up?

There is some unhealthy co-dependency stuff going on. We really need to have a clean break and have separate households.

So far that's looking impossible though .

Thank you so much everyone. Although pretty depressing to look at it all this way, it's really helping me to talk it over. I really appreciate it.

If you won’t sell the house, B’s stuffed. If you were married, B would likely get half the assets so in the region of £200,000 minus £15,000 debts divided by 2 = £92,500.

@SciFiScream

Can you officially split up but stay in the same house while you sort things out? So could the DC share a room, then A&B have a room each?

Does B have any capacity to get a job PT and run business PT?

This is difficult.

We've been sleeping in separate rooms already. I've been on the sofa for a year!

DC fight constantly, no way can they share a room! They both have some SEN issues, and that doesn't help with them winding each other up. It would be a disaster.

It is difficult, thanks for noticing!

DP is a lovely person, I wish it could have worked out between us. But the reality is, we're making ourselves and our DC unhappy. I wish happiness for both of us. No idea how to get there though, this is so hard.

Even if they were married the courts would want to see the DC houses so it may be a case of selling when the youngest was 18 via a mesher order.

If you are currently a low income family I'm not sure how much worse off you will really be. Saving on childcare costs would be good as you only get a percentage back rather than paid in full.

The unhealthy co-dependency absolutely needs to end for the DC sake doesn't it.

@HeddaGarbled

If you won’t sell the house, B’s stuffed. If you were married, B would likely get half the assets so in the region of £200,000 minus £15,000 debts divided by 2 = £92,500.

I don't think that's true?

A had a property prior to the relationship. B didn't. It wasn't bought because of earnings A made while B looked after the DC or kept the house or anything like that. Partner A brought the asset with them.

Even in marriage, that's not a 50-50 split, is it?

Totally forgotten the term for it but have you considered renting a tiny flat and alternating being in the house with the kids? A lives in house half the week with kids then goes to flat then B stays in house on “their” nights. Not ideal and does involve cooperation and trust but it would mean that you wouldn’t need to run two whole households with enough room for kids - just a one bedroom flat and current house. Then when the kids are old enough, house can be sold and equity shared however you feel is fair.

@HeddaGarbled

If you won’t sell the house, B’s stuffed. If you were married, B would likely get half the assets so in the region of £200,000 minus £15,000 debts divided by 2 = £92,500.

Partner B won't get a mortgage and Partner A may not. That money can't be used as a deposit, it would need to be used to buy something in cash.

If we sell the house, we're all stuffed.

*A had a property prior to the relationship. B didn't. It wasn't bought because of earnings A made while B looked after the DC or kept the house or anything like that. Partner A brought the asset with them.

Even in marriage, that's not a 50-50 split, is it?*

In England it is, if the marriage is long enough. After about 10 years all assets become marital assets. Different in Scotland, I understand.

Irrelevant anyway, as you’re not married, but worth bearing in mind how much B is disadvantaged in these circumstances.

@Snookie00

Totally forgotten the term for it but have you considered renting a tiny flat and alternating being in the house with the kids? A lives in house half the week with kids then goes to flat then B stays in house on “their” nights. Not ideal and does involve cooperation and trust but it would mean that you wouldn’t need to run two whole households with enough room for kids - just a one bedroom flat and current house. Then when the kids are old enough, house can be sold and equity shared however you feel is fair.

I'm not sure there's any real advantage to doing this? I can see how it could work for some but I don't think it'd work for us, sorry.

I like that you're thinking of different set ups though. There must be something that'd work!

The unhealthy co-dependency absolutely needs to end for the DC sake doesn't it.

Yes

Does B have any capacity to get a job PT and run business PT?

Maybe. The job situation here is crap though. Mostly minimum wage jobs where they're after bright eyed, bushy tailed young people to mould, not middle aged people with experience like us. Before lockdown, Partner B did apply for lots anyway and got some interviews, but no actual jobs.

People with careers here commute or WFH. Partner B did commute for a while but it was a 4.5 hour round trip daily (or staying in the city with friends) and it was unsustainable. Hence the business and WFH.

do you live in an area where lifetime council housing is a possibility?

No, unfortunately :(

If you were married partner b absolutely would have a share of the house even though they did not contribute to it. They could indeed eve end with 50% ( or more or less)

Regardless, if you are looking to split you need to focus on 1) housing the children first as priority and then what money to split/ offer

The house is among the very cheapest in town. When we were house hunting, we were pushing it to get a 3 bed for the money.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious but I don't see how we could sell up and split the money that didn't end up with the DC being significantly disadvantaged.

Last night I looked at us totally relocating. I looked at moving to a part of the UK where properly is cheaper and where we have some connections, hoping to find we might be able to afford two properties. But even then it came to about £100k more than we have.

Logically I suppose we could move to a part of the UK that's cheaper still and buy 2 properties, but the idea of uprooting us all and moving to a part of the country where we have no contacts at all and the jobs market is probably worse than here, while splitting up seems mad.