Divorce settlement?

[lollypop29]

Hi everyone

Am I entitled to a divorce settlement from my husband if he has owned his property for 10 years before we got married?

We have only been married for 2.5 years but I have left due to abuse. We have a 1 year old together who will be living with me.

Thanks

They aren't savings, it's my inheritance money and I won't be receiving it for at least a year. I'm currently staying with my mum

But by the time your divorce is finalised you'll have it. And I believe there is a question about 'anticipating change of circumstances' that you should declare the £300k on. That's why courts like a clean break - so neither of you can make a claim on future windfalls/inheritance.

OP based on your posts, you were employed and housed before you met your dh, as was he. BOTH of your lives have changed since dc came along, but that still doesn't mean you are automatically entitled to a chunk of his assets upon divorce. If your lifestyle was OK before dc came along, then it should be OK for you to return to the same standard now. Your stbex isn't obliged to maintain your married lifestyle once you are divorced.

You specifically said that you were between jobs when you found out you were pregnant, and decided to not go to work; now your circumstances have changed and you will absolutely be required to maximise your income through work, self-employed or otherwise, and yes, using childcare if it doesn't fit around your child

I would be careful if I were you, if you have an impending inheritance, he has just as much right to apply for half as you do with his property.. Like many pps have said, the courts like a clean break.

You may have a claim to pre marriage assets

He may also have a claim to your inheritance ( and why not if you’re going after ‘his’ assets)

The courts will look for a clean break and it appears there are enough assets to provide fir this

Financial settlement will be on a needs basis - you need to house your child but also have 300k to do so so they may chose not to dip into his pre marital house

He will have to pay child maintenance

He may have to pay some spousal for a period - don’t expect this for a long period, rather to assist you while child us young and for you to maximise your own earnings
You ( presumeably ) are young and Can build your own pension

As you have not been married a long time you are unlikely to walk away with large chunk of assets ( as in majority) and long term spousal but housing your child will be priority - it’s unlikely he’ll be expected to pay for this but as a high earner who knows

”I was between leaving/starting a new job when I fell pregnant so I never returned to work”

This is why people are assuming you don’t work.

@millymolls

You may have a claim to pre marriage assets

He may also have a claim to your inheritance ( and why not if you’re going after ‘his’ assets)

The courts will look for a clean break and it appears there are enough assets to provide fir this

Financial settlement will be on a needs basis - you need to house your child but also have 300k to do so so they may chose not to dip into his pre marital house

He will have to pay child maintenance

He may have to pay some spousal for a period - don’t expect this for a long period, rather to assist you while child us young and for you to maximise your own earnings
You ( presumeably ) are young and Can build your own pension

As you have not been married a long time you are unlikely to walk away with large chunk of assets ( as in majority) and long term spousal but housing your child will be priority - it’s unlikely he’ll be expected to pay for this but as a high earner who knows

Yes, that's all I'm worried about, housing our child. I don't want a huge amount of his assets. What I see reasonable is him giving me enough for a deposit so I can apply for shared ownership and then once I have my inheritance I will pay off as much of the property as I can and carry on paying the mortgage with my job

A child support order only runs for 12 mos, so I wouldn't make deals based on enhanced child support. The only child support you can rely on is CMS (and even that relies on the father not being a complete wazzock).

Judges dont like hearing about domestic abuse, it's wrong and infuriating, but that's what it is, and that's what you're working with. Stick to the financial facts without emotion. Emphasise best interests of the child.

Courts do prefer clean break, but may make a reasonable settlement to you in order to make this happen.

Cohabitation before marriage is added on to the marriage to sum a "length of marriage", but 3 years is still short. You won't get the house, you won't get half, you probably won't get much of a settlement at all, you may get something - after years of statements and hearings and horrid unpleasantness. He almost certainly will come after your inheritance as matters very slowly creak on.

How much does he earn? What equity does he have in his house i.e. after mortgage? If not much different to your £300k, I'd be in a hurry to protect your £300k with a speedy clean break and a consent order otherwise he may lawyer up and pursue you - especially if he's abusive. Be careful, often the abusive ones also pursue custody to avoid CMS and to affect settlement.

Be wise, OP. If your overall position is similar, settle. Many years of your life (and the risk of loss) is not worth it for little difference.

@PicsInRed

A child support order only runs for 12 mos, so I wouldn't make deals based on enhanced child support. The only child support you can rely on is CMS (and even that relies on the father not being a complete wazzock).

Judges dont like hearing about domestic abuse, it's wrong and infuriating, but that's what it is, and that's what you're working with. Stick to the financial facts without emotion. Emphasise best interests of the child.

Courts do prefer clean break, but may make a reasonable settlement to you in order to make this happen.

Cohabitation before marriage is added on to the marriage to sum a "length of marriage", but 3 years is still short. You won't get the house, you won't get half, you probably won't get much of a settlement at all, you may get something - after years of statements and hearings and horrid unpleasantness. He almost certainly will come after your inheritance as matters very slowly creak on.

How much does he earn? What equity does he have in his house i.e. after mortgage? If not much different to your £300k, I'd be in a hurry to protect your £300k with a speedy clean break and a consent order otherwise he may lawyer up and pursue you - especially if he's abusive. Be careful, often the abusive ones also pursue custody to avoid CMS and to affect settlement.

Be wise, OP. If your overall position is similar, settle. Many years of your life (and the risk of loss) is not worth it for little difference.

His income is 200k and he has around 450-500k equity in his property.

He is trying for 50/50 but has a past of child neglect (I'm not going into it) so he won't get it. We also live too far apart. His logic is to blackmail me with if I let him see our child he will give me money ...

@lollypop29

Why are you all presuming I don't work?!

Because of this:

have nothing. I'm 10 years younger than him and I was between leaving/starting a new job when I fell pregnant so I never returned to work and didn't need to work as we were good financially.

I was speaking about when we first got together. I have my own business now. No it isn't enough to cover me financially alone but I do work.

Right...so basically he gets to keep his almost 1 million pound property because it's what he had before, the courts will prefer a clean break and we both return to our lifestyle prior to marriage ...so he'll return to his 200k salary, million pound property and ill struggle with a child 🙂 yes I have a high inheritance which I'm lucky I have. But I don't have it yet and won't have it for at least a year.

I'm going to scrape together every penny I have to put a roof over the head of the child we BOTH created while he cheats the system to give me the bare minimum child maintenance due to his self employment...safe to say I won't be marrying again and I'll be protecting my financial assets in the future!!

I'm lucky I've got my inheritance as without that I'd be well and truly f*ed. lesson learnt - don't get married!! 🥴lol

So how much deposit is needed, and how much is it to buy the shared ownership place?

You rented 3 years ago, and you're now looking at child maintenance of £1000+ per month. Which with your own income should be adequate to provide a home for you and your child.

Your ex isn't expected to maintain/fund your current lifestyle as you are separating, and yes, his assets were mostly accrued before you met/married so he has a legal right that they are generally protected, aside from increases over the last 3 years.

His long-term financial obligation is to the dc, whose lifestyle may well be very different between the two homes. You may be eligible for some spousal maintenance whilst you get yourself back on your feet and into full-time work, but I would expect that to be limited to just a few years.

£300k plus a deposit of (as per my previous example) say £25k, plus a 30 year mortgage on an income of (wild guess) £20k which works out at up to £90k,gives a purchase price of £415k. That would buy two spacious 3-bed semis in my street.

Don't want to scare you, but historically some draconian judges have placed children with the parent who is financially better off.. I've seen it happen, domestic abuse counts for nothing in the family court. He will win because he has money. I wouldn't try and take him for his property. Courts work in the abusers favour.

Fuck me.

he has around 450-500k equity in his property. plus a fucking massive mortgage and child maintenance payments to you

So with your inheritance, deposit (via estimate of 50% of property value increase over 3 years) and potential mortgage, that takes you to £415k. Not such a difference between the two.

@Shamalamadingd0ng

Don't want to scare you, but historically some draconian judges have placed children with the parent who is financially better off.. I've seen it happen, domestic abuse counts for nothing in the family court. He will win because he has money. I wouldn't try and take him for his property. Courts work in the abusers favour.

Sorry but you're wrong. He'll be lucky if the court even let him have unsupervised access after what he did with her. I'm not going into it on here as it's irrelevant to the financial question I'm asking, but I'm not worried about her being placed with him.

@Couldhavebeenme3

Fuck me.

he has around 450-500k equity in his property. plus a fucking massive mortgage and child maintenance payments to you

So with your inheritance, deposit (via estimate of 50% of property value increase over 3 years) and potential mortgage, that takes you to £415k. Not such a difference between the two.

He doesn't have a massive mortgage at all. I think his mortgage is around 1k a month. His property has more than tripled in value since he bought it. He's also got a second home elsewhere which he also owns.

@lollypop29

Right...so basically he gets to keep his almost 1 million pound property because it's what he had before, the courts will prefer a clean break and we both return to our lifestyle prior to marriage ...so he'll return to his 200k salary, million pound property and ill struggle with a child 🙂 yes I have a high inheritance which I'm lucky I have. But I don't have it yet and won't have it for at least a year.

I'm going to scrape together every penny I have to put a roof over the head of the child we BOTH created while he cheats the system to give me the bare minimum child maintenance due to his self employment...safe to say I won't be marrying again and I'll be protecting my financial assets in the future!!

I'm lucky I've got my inheritance as without that I'd be well and truly f*ed. lesson learnt - don't get married!! 🥴lol

Or, you get to fleece his £800k not a million quid house (minus mortgage so admittedly only half that) to live a lifestyle that was nowhere near what you had only 3 short years ago?

£250k for 2.5 years marriage. Wow. I know you have a kid together. But many, many, many single parents have nothing. Zero. No child maintenance, no £300k inheritance on the horizon. And they manage to bring up their kids, get a job and prosper.

I left my marriage with 2 kids, an 18 year old car and as much as I could fit in it to drive to my mum's.

I think you are being incredibly optimistic. As do many other posters on this thread.

The CMS will he what pays for housing/bills etc for your child. And there might possible spousal support, which would probably be for a short period.

Having a child doesn't mean younget half his assets. Or that he has to buy you home.

As pp points out if all assets are thrown in a pot, that would include you inheritance.

If you business isn't earning enough (assuming you live in an area that property is very expensive) you will struggle to get a mortgage even with a large deposit. Especially if self employed.

You were only out of work for a short period so I think its best you look at getting back into paid, employed work. The longer the divorce takes the higher the liklihood that your inheritance will be part of it.

You will be entitled to assest accumulated I the 3 years.

Honestly, being a single parent working full time is hard. I did it with 2 kids. But its far better than being in an abusive marriage. I had to move 30 mins away from family support to afford a house. But again. Its been worth it.

Also Bare in mind you may not qualify for legal aid. Its not easy to get, even with DV. I would assume if this happened 2 days ago, you haven't had a final decision yet.

Oh and my career has taken off and I now earn alot more than I did when the kids were young. I won't be getting married gain either op. It's not a bad decision to make.

He doesn't have a massive mortgage at all. I think his mortgage is around 1k a month. His property has more than tripled in value since he bought it. He's also got a second home elsewhere which he also owns.

If his property has equity of £450 to 500k then based on your own estimates his mortgage is anywhere between £300k and £550k, which is massive.

By the simple virtue of you only being around for the last 3 years, You have made
very little contribution to his overall assets. The fact his property has tripled in value since he bought it MANY YEARS BEFORE HE MET YOU has no bearing on this at all.

The fact he does have another property that you have so far failed to mention could make some difference, but I very much doubt he will be forced to just hand it over.

There must be more equity in his property then because I know his mortgage is small. I have no idea about finances. He hid everything from me

I don’t think you’ll be able to get legal aid if you have £300k - should also have name changed before you posted this as if anyone searches your names they may find some other pertinent threads….

@ArdoCycle

I don’t think you’ll be able to get legal aid if you have £300k - should also have name changed before you posted this as if anyone searches your names they may find some other pertinent threads….

What names? This username?

Whatever he's done, abuser or not.. You sound like you're just out to get as much as you can and your child is a mechanism to do that.
Many, many, many women leave abusive relationships with absolutely nothing, even married ones, those who have been married 20 odd years.
If I were you, financially.. I wouldn't pursue a divorce settlement for his house. You will be bitterly disappointed. Just walk away with your dignity and safety in tact.

@Shamalamadingd0ng

Whatever he's done, abuser or not.. You sound like you're just out to get as much as you can and your child is a mechanism to do that. Many, many, many women leave abusive relationships with absolutely nothing, even married ones, those who have been married 20 odd years. If I were you, financially.. I wouldn't pursue a divorce settlement for his house. You will be bitterly disappointed. Just walk away with your dignity and safety in tact.

Should've guessed someone would say that!

I'm definitely not out to take my husbands hard earned assets. But what I would like is his help housing OUR child. I didn't say I wanted a large amount of money off him. But I would like a contribution towards putting a roof over OUR child's head.

I think some of your past threads are striking up the question as to how genuine you are.
I'll say no more about that, other than remember that people on mumsnet aren't stupid and know that you've posted multiple times before and the details always deviate.