So anxious about splitting assets

[Chinupandtitsout]

I would be so grateful if anyone can help me here as I’m getting myself completely anxious and can’t seem to find a way out.

My partner and I have been married for 12 years (no kids) and they walked out without warning last summer. I have been on an emotional rollercoaster ever since, and it seems to be getting worse. They told me they want a divorce and have started proceedings. I’m beyond broken as I didn’t see the warning signs and wanted to work and fix this. I’ve worked hard on giving them the space, and now the divorce is in motion we are having to work on splitting assets.

We bought a house together 11 years ago and spent a great deal on completely renovating it into what is now an amazing property. It has gone from 170,000 to 420,000. We have 114,000 left on the mortgage so an equity of 306,000. I am the higher earner (75/25), but they want 50% of the equity. I now face either buying them out for an unrealistic amount of money, or having to sell my home that we’ve spent years doing up, and still giving them half of the equity. I never wanted this!

I understand they want out and I’m having to accept it. It seems grossly unfair given that I put the majority of the money. They are not budging on what they want. We got the mortgage 50/50 as I am older (55 now) by 13 years, I wanted to make sure that if anything happened to me, they wouldn’t be financially in a mess. Due to my age, I cannot get myself into a loan of roughly 150,000 to buy them out. It seems that I have no alternative but to sell the house. It all seems so dreadfully unfair when I never wanted this. I thought we had a great marriage – they obviously didn’t! I will also add that when they left, they have left me to pay the mortgage single-handedly.

Am I being unreasonable by being so angry about all this? I feel like I’m being taken advantage of financially.

Should I just give up what I have spent years trying to achieve? Because of their decision. Am I being unfair? I didn’t want to lose my marriage, and now it looks like I will also lose my home too. What realistically are my options?

Thanks for reading this far!

Weird how you’ve avoided saying if you’re married to a man or a woman but the principle is the same either way. You got married. You looked your resources. That’s the whole point. There is no ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ income, it’s all one pot. Of course it should be 50:50.

*pooled resources

Thanks for replying. Yeah, I realised half way through it was gender neutral, but it was easier that way. So 50/50 is fair? I feel such a mug.

Of course 50:50 is fair from the information we have. You’re also walking away with much higher earning power for the rest of your working life, I’m not sure why you think you’re in such an awful position? Division of assets isn’t a punishment for the person that ended the relationship.

You’re also walking away with much higher earning power for the rest of your working life

Not quite. They walked just after a post-graduate was paid for, and their earnings have now shot up to almost equal to mine. They also have more years to contribute to a new mortgage than I do.

But I get what you are saying.

Division of assets isn’t a punishment for the person that ended the relationship.
Totally agree - this isn't in punishment, I'm just so scared of losing my home. Please be gentle.

What can you get a loan of?

Have you looked at pensions? Are they balanced value wise?

If you could borrow an extra £100000, could you persuade you ex to let you pay pay at a future date?

Default is 50:50. All assets including. savings, pension, expensive items such as jewellery or sports equipment are also split, so you may be able to balance off savings or part of your pension against equity in your house (although you may not want to!). You may need proper advice (solicitor) on how much of your pensions are in the pot, as presumably some contributions will be from before you were together.

Speak to a solicitor. No one here will be able to advise you properly. If you have been solely paying the mortgage for a year then this may have an impact on the split. If you can prove that they left and stopped paying the mortgage. For example you could argue that their split of the equity be 50 percent of what the home was worth when they left. Or that you are paid back the mortgage payments that you have paid all be in the past year and then the equity split. There may also be negotiation based on who paid the deposit for example. But speak to a solicitor.

What can you get a loan of?
I'm meeting with a mortgage broker next week once they give me a final figure. I'm still waiting on an evaluation of the house by the bank.

Our pensions are both negligible, so aren't in the equation.

They are also asking for 50% of our savings. Maybe I'm just being really in the wrong. I'm having a hard time dealing with the emotional fallout of this plus having to get myself massively in debt or lose the house, when I didn't choose this.

I'm feeling so lost right now, so thank you for your suggestions. I thought I was doing so well, but I'm still in pieces.

I don’t necessarily agree it should be 50:50
You don’t have children so neither party disadvantaged- you just happen to earn differently.
Also as you’re 13 years older your mortgage raising is impacted by that whereas theirs is by income. You also have less years to build up pension etc
I wouldn’t personally accept 50:50 in this scenario
See a solicitor!

As you are equal earners now and you are significantly nearer retirement age with a lower borrowing potential it may not be 50:50 however ending up in court could cost you a lot too.

@Redfloweryellowflower

Default is 50:50. All assets including. savings, pension, expensive items such as jewellery or sports equipment are also split, so you may be able to balance off savings or part of your pension against equity in your house (although you may not want to!). You may need proper advice (solicitor) on how much of your pensions are in the pot, as presumably some contributions will be from before you were together.

No, default is not:50….there is a set of 10 criteria….see message later

May end up 50:50 if all criteria are met

Thank you for comments. Massively appreciated.
I saw the 10 criteria on a post a while back but can’t locate it now. Can anyone link it, please?
On another note, I have just heard from them as it’s time to put our tax returns in. If we do it separately, we get a lot less than married. She is suggesting we then split the extra 1500 equally between us even though I paid the mortgage alone for 5 months of the year.
I really am lost at what is fair in this situation too. I feel like my head is spinning between what is and what isn’t fair.

Unfortunately OP, irrespective of who initiates or is blame for divorce you will both end up poorer.
I know from personal experience this is a shock when you realise this, difficult not to feel unfair, and takes time to let reality sink in and accept it

Contrary to what a lot of people think, 50:50 is NOT the automatic default. There are 10 ish criteria a court uses in deciding whether a financial settlement is fair. They apply these whether they are just “sealing” a mutually agreed consent order you’ve drawn up, or asking the court to decide as you can’t agree.

Only once those 10 criteria are taken in account , and there is sufficient assets will the 50:50 apply.

There are no criteria that take into account who is wanting the divorce, or at blame for the divorce - even in examples of unreasonable behaviour like abuse. Courts will only apply behavioural issue if one party would be benefiting form a criminal offence.

In order to know exactly what your split will be, ALL assets need to be declared. This is a legal requirement and is done on a form E and D81. If you can’t agree between you and go a consent order route, and then need to go to mediation and court , other forms need to be completed as well.
These forms dictate what assets are included and what you value them at. They include property, savings, investments and pensions as well as earnings.
You then look at the criteria the courts use- you check if any of those apply to your situation and if they do adjust the split based on that minimum requirement. If the criteria that apply can all be met , then it is assumed that you then have a 50:50 right as joint matrimonial asssets. No where in these does it normally count as to who paid for what from where.
You need to then talk to each other and negotiate - for you it may be you can appeal to his sense of justice that he is one leaving- but the courts view is that the irretrievable breakdown of marriage is rarely the “fault” of one party only ( indeed it is this premise that is changing the whole law of divorce in about 3 days time,). My strong advice is to look at your whole financial position, so for instance it sounds like your pension pot will be significantly bigger than yours, he has rights to ask for pension sharing , you may decide it is better not to fight the 50:50 house assets to keep your pensions. This is what you need to negotiate and really think about what your position really is and what is your best outcome in reality.

Be aware, that if you go the route of mediation or, god forbid,all the way to court to try to get a bigger share of assets, your cost will mount quickly. Solicitors charge around £200 an hour for every second they’re listening to you, talking to you, reading your emails, never mind actually working on your paperwok. The more either of you refuse to accept the inevitable and continue to fight it the more it will cost. Posters on other threads are saying divorce cost them £10k or even £20k. This is ridiculous. Most people will end up exactly where they would have been if they had just sat down, parked the anger and read the dam rules and applied their brains and sorted it out. The criteria are what the courts WILL use, or you can read them for yourselves and apply them at zilch cost on solicitors.
cMy divorce last year cost us( both my ex and I in total) around £1700. But I had to come a long way to accept I would leave the marriage poorer, that the house would be sold, and that everything I worked so hard for financially was being changed dramatically.( in my case my ex had not worked for last 15years of our long marriage, I was sole breadwinner).

It is indeed hard reality. It is painful. You are not wrong in feeling scared, angry and resentful. You will over time gradually adjust to the new reality of what it means financially. Unfortunately a marriage is as much a financial contract as anything else- you agreed to share your worldly goods with each other- this is the down side of that commitment.
💐

It’s me that keeps positive I get the links …check my posts…

Go onto Gov website to see process and get forms to print
Advice Now do a great downloadable booklet on financial agreement DIY
Mediate is other site

@MayMorris. Thank you so much for your detailed and understanding response. I will read and re-read to take it all in. I'm so sorry to hear that your ex hadn't worked for 15 years and you are now financially worse off. That's so tough, but you sound so strong now.
I guess I just need to grit my teeth about this.
I'm actually dreading the sit-down-and-thrash-it-out conversation we'll have to have. Horrible situation.

You talk about Euros. Are you in the U.K.? That’s rather important…

[quote Chinupandtitsout]@MayMorris. Thank you so much for your detailed and understanding response. I will read and re-read to take it all in. I'm so sorry to hear that your ex hadn't worked for 15 years and you are now financially worse off. That's so tough, but you sound so strong now.
I guess I just need to grit my teeth about this.
I'm actually dreading the sit-down-and-thrash-it-out conversation we'll have to have. Horrible situation.[/quote]
Your welcome
Link to guide I found (we found actually) sooooo useful. Cost £22 to load but that is about same price as ~5mins of a solicitors time so we’ll worth it
www.advicenow.org.uk/guides/how-apply-financial-order-without-help-lawyer

You talk about Euros. Are you in the U.K.? That’s rather important…

No, I'm not. However, as we got married in the UK, although we don't live there, it is possible for me to file from the UK. It means there may be a chance of a fairer division of assets. I have a solicitor looking into this, as it's not clear if UK divorce would have jurisdiction of assets abroad.

@MayMorris - thank you for the link. I'll look into this now.

I'm really just trying to get my head around the fairness/unfairness of what's being presented to me.

Just the fact that you are replying makes me feel so much calmer than I was a while ago.

Really, thank you so much.

Hey, time to try to switch off tonight but hopefully you are aware the uk divorce law is changing in a few days. Pretty major reform to divorc3 process itself. No change I understand to financial process which has always be separate but parallel process

You may be able to argue that you should have a larger share of the assets due to your age and therefor less mortgage capacity. Speak to a solicitor.