Divorcing and annoyed about losing equity

[Mumof3confused]

Just coming in here to vent a bit. I was quite smart with my property investments in my 20’s and ended up bailing out my H when he found himself in negative equity after the 2007 crash. We married in 2011 and when we bought a house, put in about £200k into the deposit. Of course I never envisaged us splitting but we now have about £900k equity thanks to me working my socks off to fund a £260k extension on our house (he also works FT so it’s not a case of Stay at hime parent to allow me to further my career).

Just a bit pissed off that he takes half of the equity when he’s been riding on my coattails for the duration of our marriage. I know that’s what he’s entitled to but right now that feels unfair because I’d love to keep the house for the sake of the children’s stability but won’t be able to with this amount of equity. And we only have the equity because I sorted the bloody extension which he didn’t even have anything to do with, none of the planning, stress or financing - nothing.

If he has a final salary pension the transfer value of it will be huge. You might find you can take more of the equity to "allow" him to keep his pension.

A friend did the opposite. Gave his wife the pension so he could keep the house.

@QuestionsorComments

If he has a final salary pension the transfer value of it will be huge. You might find you can take more of the equity to "allow" him to keep his pension.

A friend did the opposite. Gave his wife the pension so he could keep the house.

I asked the solicitor and she reckons that it’s only worth around £150k since he’s only been paying into it for 12 years. I’m hoping she’s wrong and it’s worth much, much more!

Lots of people have covered the pension point but on the after school care point:

Maintenance will be determined by nights. Effectively what you're planning to do is do all the work and incur all the costs of having the children after school while he gets to reduce his maintenance bill. Why would you do that?

Surely it makes more sense to say to him that you're happy with doing all the school nights, if he wants to do any, he needs to make arrangements (e.g. changing his working hours) to be responsible for them from school finish time. I bet he won't bother and that is a better result for you from the POV of maintenance as well as time with the kids. If he does sort it out, it'll be nice for you surely to have one day or so a week where you can be child free and get on with work or social commitment

@Classicblunder

Lots of people have covered the pension point but on the after school care point:

Maintenance will be determined by nights. Effectively what you're planning to do is do all the work and incur all the costs of having the children after school while he gets to reduce his maintenance bill. Why would you do that?

Surely it makes more sense to say to him that you're happy with doing all the school nights, if he wants to do any, he needs to make arrangements (e.g. changing his working hours) to be responsible for them from school finish time. I bet he won't bother and that is a better result for you from the POV of maintenance as well as time with the kids. If he does sort it out, it'll be nice for you surely to have one day or so a week where you can be child free and get on with work or social commitment

Well, I would like to see my children every day…he might agree to fund some of their meals on those days but either way I’d much prefer they were with me than anyone else. He will definitely want to have them 50:50. Regarding meals we may come to some informal agreement about that, but it’s not a main priority for me.