What are the chances of getting maintenance pending suit?

[Threecrookedhearts]

stbxh left to move in with ow end of January. He initially looked like he'd continue to cover his half of mortgage and loan payments and give me £500 a month for children. In just 2 months he's turned v nasty and is now saying (I think) that he's only going to cover his half of the mortgage (£588) and nothing else. I have 2 DC 12 and 14 and of course need new school shoes (adult sizes), clothes, school dinners, trips to cafe/cinema, the bills, we have 2 cats etc etc. I am the higher earner - he earns £37k and me £43k but I can't survive with just his half of the mortgage. I've now applied to CMS but that will take a while and as he's moved in with ow who has a child of her own that means he'd only need to give me £400 a month. And I believe he can say he's paying his 50% of the mortgage in lieu of child maintenance? He's just bullying me. He's got a solicitor now and wants everything through a solicitor. I don't have one (can't afford one). Is it highly unlikely I'll get mps in my circumstance? Will I have to max out overdraft/get more loans to get by until this divorce is finalised? What a tool. OW has her own home and from the look of it has been there a long time probably with a minimal mortgage and has a good job so really he could live rent free with her. He also took the family car (worth £12k) leaving me without one (I paid half but of course it's in his name) and gets all his travel and food costs paid through work so his outgoing aren't that high apart from wineing and dining ow and her kid.

A solicitor will be able to advise you on whether to claim maintenance pending suit. Mumsnetters won't really be able to predict whether he'll have to or not unfortunately.

Have you had any legal advise so far?

I've had lots of free chats at the initial stages of separation in February. I have read too many stories now of people spending £7k + and an end being nowhere in sight. I'm probably going to do DIY for financials and use mackenzie friends/wikivorce where needed. Just looking for others experience really rather than expert legal advice.

He can't pay mortgage in lieu of maintenance

You have 2 almost identical threads about this. It's going to split your responses and confuse people.

What sort of maintenance are you looking for op?

CMS is really all he's legally obliged to pay, and the chances of you securing spousal maintenance (on his salary of £37k with you earning more) are almost certainly virtually nil.

Unfortunately divorce usually does mean a reduction in standards of living for both sides, and if you can't afford to manage a big mortgage you will ultimately need to downsize.

It took me a while to realise that op, but it really did make a difference to my head space when it did.

There other thread didn't seem to go through last night. It just whirred around til I gave up I even checked this morning and it wasn't posted and then as soon as I posted this thread the other one appeared!

Based on the cms calculator and the kids staying one to two nights a week with him, it’s 375 a month he needs to pay in total. If they never stay it’s 437 a month. So in reality you’re better off with him paying half the mortgage.

The house needs ro be sold or you need to take on the mortgage yourself fully, he won’t be expected to pay the mortgage and pay maintenance too. The housing of the kids comes from the maintenance.

If he has a solicitor and is any good they should be advising him to continue to pay half of his mortgage if the property is in joint names.
CMS application is a good start just go through them they will write to him which should ( if half decent) make him think he needs to pay and if he doesn't then go through direct pay.
I had this constant threats of what I was getting £ each month never knew where I was what I could expect to live off each month. Proceeded with divorce and like you thought how can I afford it but I did, sharpened my pencil stopped all the treats and luxuries pulled my belt in as I wanted it sorted. He is trying to control you financially

It's all so wrong and stacked in their favour. They can just abandon a marriage of 20yrs and 2 children for a woman they've known 2 weeks and I'm supposed to absorbed all costs related to joint commitments (children/loans/mortgage/utilities) and he just hands over bare minimum? He's totally left me in the shit. I probably could take on the mortgage by myself by refinancing- extending the term but I can't do that right now as only at early stages. He just wants his dosh and is demanding 50% even though he's not having the children at all and barely even seen them. It's me that will need to house them.

It's very hard at the moment but things will get better. Go through cms for CM. Talk to your mortgage provider maybe they can offer a mortgage break? Get a solicitor the longer you leave it the more it will cost in the long run ( as in he will get away without paying) if he's not having the kids tell cms and you will get more money what a twat

I think you need to put thoughts about the OW out of your head as much as possible. What she earns has absolutely no bearing in law in what he has to pay in CM.
Look at things like pensions, equity in the home, savings. They all have to be shared. You may have to sell the house. He’s entitled to half the equity whether you sell now or in 5 years.

@Soontobe60 that's not entirely true she may get more than 50% if she has the children

You can't afford not to get legal advice.
Try this www.advicenow.org.uk/know-hows/getting-affordable-advice-family-solicitor-advicenow

Unfortunately you do need the legal advice. I was a higher earner like you and also have the kids 100per cent of the time. He never contacts them. Unfortunately he got 55 per cent of joint assets. Complete travesty as far as any fairness goes but that is how the law works. The more you put in the less you get out. One solicitor told me he could try for 70 per cent. Nobody seems to care about the kids at all or who is raising them and shouldering all those costs.

Ultimately you will be better off without him. My ex was a leech but it’s not at all easy being mum and dad to the kids and I try to make sure their living standards have not changed.

TorringtonDean that's horrific. I honestly can't understand how that can happen. Did he have a great lawyer or did it go to court and a judge pronounced? Sounds terrible. I'm so worried.

No, he had a crummy high st lawyer but it was made very clear by my supposedly good solicitor that this is the law and if I took it to court I could do worse plus pay another £30k in costs. I had to agree to give him extra cash so he didn’t get a share of my pension pot. In theory my pot was a lot bigger than his due to 20 years of earning about double his salary BUT mine is a private sector draw down and his is public sector so cushier. In addition, I was left to single-handedly fund our DS who was at uni. Of course the law says there is no obligation to pay for kids once they leave secondary education. The reality was that he was already at uni and before the split we had both promised to pay for accommodation and personally I was not going to pull the rug from my kid after all the years of encouraging him to get there! His dad didn’t give a damn and hasn’t given a penny.

I was horrified at how the law has become twisted. Divorce laws which in theory were to stop a man leaving his wife and kids destitute are now used by men to grab as much cash as possible and run for the hills. The sexist assumption is that the lower earner might need more to compensate them for the damage to earning power of staying home with the kids. But actually I did all the “wife work” when they were growing up while both of us had full-time jobs. I still house them, feed them, etc and in fact had to row back on my career to be around more for my younger DD. The law also seems to consider an over-18 at uni doesn’t need a bedroom back at the family home or a parent who actually cares about him - but we mums know young adults normally do need a home base.

You haven't got a chance of maintenance pending suit and it might not be a very clever move tactically to claim for it either, for two reasons.

First, the reason you won't get it. Maintenance pending suit is extremely rare even when the petitioner earns less than the respondent. You earn more than he does and as you will soon learn, that matters a lot more to the courts these days than who actually does all the childcare. In my case I was doing more than half the childcare whilst my ex-wife went back to university and I was treated by the legal system as though I was the kind of high earning father who had no input into bringing up the children at all, all because I earned a lot more than she could.

Second, there are two reasons you shouldn't try and get it tactically. The first is financial. The cost of applying for it will probably be higher than the amount you get. He's got to fund his housing costs on only £37k and will be deemed to need suitable accommodation for himself and the children when they are with him. Therefore the amount you receive is most likely nothing and even in the best case outcome you're probably looking at a £5k legal bill for £100 a month until the absolute.

The other reason is because you'll have to go to court and say "I can't possibly afford to pay the mortgage on the FMH without this money." So if you are planning on any kind of housing arrangement that involves you getting temporary use of the house until the children are grown up like a Mesher Order or a transfer with chargeback, you won't get it because you'll already have admitted that you can't afford the mortgage. And with him on £37k and you on £43k, after the divorce there is absolutely no chance you'll get spousal maintenance and no chance he'll be expected to pay anything towards your mortgage.

He will only be expected to pay child maintenance, which assuming he's paying a typical amount for a public sector worker into his pension and will have the children every other weekend, would be £387 a month. In fact, he could probably reduce what he is paying you to £387 now so you might not be well advised to start a maintenance from suit claim.