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Divorce/separation

Here you'll find divorce help and support from other Mners. For legal advice, you may find Advice Now guides useful.

How does it work when you both move out?

2 replies

Capriol · 12/02/2022 23:29

We are separating. We have a large house, full of accumulated stuff. The garage alone - I look at it and think ‘what is all this stuff?!’

If we are to buy 2 separate houses, how on earth do we sort out who takes what? I honestly can’t see how we could firstly sort out all the accumulated ‘stuff’ and secondly pack everything into a “his’ and ‘hers’ boxes, especially the chikdren’s things.

Do we both need to exchange on the same day? Or is there some way that one person (prob ex dh in this situation) can move out, taking what they want, leaving the other behind to sort everything out before moving themselves?

Can anyone tell me how it worked for you? A large house with 2 adults, 2 kids, splitting into 2 separate much smaller homes.

OP posts:
winniemum · 13/02/2022 10:12

I’d like to know this too OP.
My DH is currently in our family home and I moved into a rental last year due to his anger issues.
We have loads of stuff!
We’re both moving out and I’ve just presumed we’ll have to buy storage until our DCs get their own places to put all their belongings (inherited stuff which is sentimental mainly).
I’d be interested to know who is ultimately responsible for making sure the property is empty on completion.
I’m guessing both of us, but as I’ve been locked out since day 1 I’m just wondering how I’ll be able to manage this unless he decides to let me in to sort and clean when we complete (very likely).
Have you got time to take a load of stuff to the tip/charity/car boot?
It would be difficult to complete on the same day so I guess the one who moves last will have to make sure the house is empty.
Id try and sort stuff as soon as you can.

MayMorris · 15/02/2022 11:21

I had an amicable divorce which helped - though was a quickie on unreasonable behaviour grounds.
So I suggested we worked on a premise of needing to set up 2 separate households based on approximately what we had now.

Ex was moving out first into a house that was loaned about 6 weeks ahead of me. I was in process of buying. Most of my share of assets was in out house, his in cash. So we decided he’d move first, I’d stay and be in charge of selling (as I had bigger incentive sell quickly)and then moving into my new house. That way there’d be only one chain.

We then went round the house and listed everything with a his/hers . In practice we put post it’s on furniture/items he was taking so that movers would be able to identify easily, as they’d move him first. We had to both be pragmatic about what we asked for based on reality of where we were moving into. I has certain items I knew I wanted, and identified items I knew would be important to him to “barter” up front. I did manipulate it a bit about items I wanted - but I knew what was important to him and used that

We also identified things we would both need in new household. Everything from 2 sets of cutlery, pans, etc, 2 cars , 2 computers ,2 dining tables and chairs, bedding etc etc. we agreed who would take existing ones and who would get “new” and then listed out all of those things in a spreadsheet and estimated costs. We then determined who would spend what on those new items, and split the difference so we both equally paid for these new items- in practice we bought a lot from balance in our joint account until we zeroed it out and basically by time he left , many of the new items we needed were already purchased and boxed waiting to go into our respective homes. It might seem a bit wired we did this, but we’d have needed up spending that money later, and it just struck me it made it easier that we could see we’d both be leaving with enough essential stuff to hit the ground running in our own new homes. It result3d in a lot less arguments and bitterness.

Our spreadsheet also covered dividing the costs of divorce, moving, costs of seeking house and each buying a house as well. But then we were both very analytical and pedantic and financially mean .

We had 2 major clear outs- once on our own and then agian with adult sons to help us get stuff down form attic and handle stuff in garage. It was actually quite a good weekend discovering family stuff we’d stored away and having a bit of a laugh- but guess that isn’t possible for everyone,

We then moved all my ex things into certain rooms or cupboards and labelled to again separate out for removers.

We got as much stuff done as we could in terms of repairs and filling holes to old house before he left. I agreed to finish this off after my stuff was removed. I also agreed to do all the cleaning needed as I moved out- though he did help with big clean as he moved which I insisted on as I wasn’t going to clean his crap . It seemed fair for me to pick that bigger load up given he was moving first.

In the end the splitting of stuff was much much easier than I anticipated- no arguments at all. But it was helped by that principle we’d agreed and by fact we knew what sort of accommodation we’d be moving to in terms of what furniture we could accommodate of stuff we had already.

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