Advice needed re divorce

[Helpwouldbegreat]

Hi,

I'm looking for some advice, I've come to absolutely gut wrenching decision that it is best for myself and my wife to divorce. I am 28 and she is 36. I earn 45k PA working full time 3 nights a week. She earns 15k working part time 3 days a week and we have a 4 year old daughter who is going to be going to be starting school in September. We have have 6k in savings(LISA in Wife's name). No property. No debts. Our pensions are NHS pensions and we have been paying into them for 7 years. They are roughly equivalent in value. We have been married 3 years, living together 4.

I want to do a 3/4 split, having my daughter 3 nights a week(and would be fully available that whole period). I would love a down the middle 50/50 split but working 3 nights means I couldn't do a 4th night every other week. I would obviously pay her CM to make up for this.
allowing me to take my daughter on holiday outside of term time 2 weeks a year.(2 holidays)
I want to move to my parents temporarily to save for a mortgage and immediately begin the child residency arrangements when I move.
I would let her keep the 6k in the LISA as this would mean she had emergency money but wouldn't reduce overall UC entitlement.
pay no SM as this would reduce her UC entitlement more than she would ever be likely granted by a court.

I suppose the advice I'm after is, am I being reasonable? I feel like I'm being fair and don't want my STBXW to suffer unfair hardship but feel like any substantial support I could give her outside of CM would impact her UC and would be less for me to spend on my daughter from my end.

I don't expect this to ever go to court, we have no assets or substantial cash so to speak of and it would be throwing money we don't have down the drain. If it did, do you feel a judge would agree that a settlement like this would be fair and in the best interest of our daughter?

Thanks

From a UC point of view it will help your stbx if you allow her to be declared as primary carer as that will enable her to access the work allowance of UC. She'd be seen as primary carer if you make a 4:3 arrangement in her favour.

I think what you're offering is quite fair unless for whatever reason she wanted you to have the children exactly 50/50 (to Oviraptor's point on primary carer, I find this unlikely as it would cost her a lot in universal credit and lost child maintenance which it looks like she is going to need).

You won't be expected to pay spousal maintenance. Your daughter is 4 now so she'll be expected to maximise her earning capacity which is £25k (working five days a week instead of three) plus child benefit plus probably some universal credit (certainly on £15k and probably still some on £25k). She'll also be entitled to around £240 a month in child maintenance from you.

Just running the numbers through EntitledTo suggests she could get around £530 in benefits a month (including child benefit) if she maximised her income to £25k. So, she could have:

Income: £1,720
Benefits: £530
Child Maintenance: £240

A total of £2,490 a month. In contrast, you would have a salary minus child maintenance totalling £2,610 and have nearly as much care of your daughter as she did. No court is going to consider that a spousal case, especially as you would need to pay her around £400 in spousal just to replace universal credit £ for £.

I would get the child care agreed with a consent order though. Some primary carers can get a bit grabby when they want more money and sadly a minority will use children as leverage (e.g. stopping your contact in order to demand more child maintenance than the CMS figure etc). This does tend to happen more frequently where there are assets to divide however.

With a child in primary school the carer would usually be allowed slightly reduced work requirements to fit around school drop off and pick up. So something like 25-30 hours a week is quite normal.

@FutureExH

I think what you're offering is quite fair unless for whatever reason she wanted you to have the children exactly 50/50 (to Oviraptor's point on primary carer, I find this unlikely as it would cost her a lot in universal credit and lost child maintenance which it looks like she is going to need).

You won't be expected to pay spousal maintenance. Your daughter is 4 now so she'll be expected to maximise her earning capacity which is £25k (working five days a week instead of three) plus child benefit plus probably some universal credit (certainly on £15k and probably still some on £25k). She'll also be entitled to around £240 a month in child maintenance from you.

Just running the numbers through EntitledTo suggests she could get around £530 in benefits a month (including child benefit) if she maximised her income to £25k. So, she could have:

Income: £1,720
Benefits: £530
Child Maintenance: £240

A total of £2,490 a month. In contrast, you would have a salary minus child maintenance totalling £2,610 and have nearly as much care of your daughter as she did. No court is going to consider that a spousal case, especially as you would need to pay her around £400 in spousal just to replace universal credit £ for £.

I would get the child care agreed with a consent order though. Some primary carers can get a bit grabby when they want more money and sadly a minority will use children as leverage (e.g. stopping your contact in order to demand more child maintenance than the CMS figure etc). This does tend to happen more frequently where there are assets to divide however.

Would it really be £240 a month for just one extra day a week?

I did the calculator for ex H same salary, for two children full time care with me except an occasional weekly stop over, they came to £550 total (275 each). Doesn't seem to tie up!

@oviraptor21

With a child in primary school the carer would usually be allowed slightly reduced work requirements to fit around school drop off and pick up. So something like 25-30 hours a week is quite normal.

That might reduce her earning capacity by about £280 so still not enough for spousal maintenance (mainly because the OP wouldn't be able to pay).

Also, as this is shared care, the OP will presumably have the same number of school runs as the STBXW so she will have just as much chance to work and more like 32-33 hours might be appropriate.

@AllChange2022

No, I said £240 a month, not per week. It's actually £232.23 on the government's calculator. OP mentioned they earned £45k for the NHS so I factored in that 9.3% of gross salary is paid into the NHS pension scheme. That leaves a salary of £40,815 for CM purposes and on the basis of three nights a week it's going to be £232.23 a month or £53.63 a week.

Sorry, I meant a month, not a week! I can't understand why my ex earns the same as the OP and for 2 children full time custody would be £550ish a month, but this single night a week would be the same as I get for one child having them all week! Strange.

@AllChange2022

Sorry, I meant a month, not a week! I can't understand why my ex earns the same as the OP and for 2 children full time custody would be £550ish a month, but this single night a week would be the same as I get for one child having them all week! Strange.

Well, it's not on a sliding scale (it's broken into categories of how many nights e.g. anything from 104 to 155 nights with payer still pay the same), the first child gets more than if there are two children and if there are other children from another relationship this may also complicate matters.

Incidentally if the OP had two children that never lived with them on their salary they would pay £542 a month which sounds very similar to your situation.