Student debt, finances on divorce

[NeedSleepNow]

I'm trying to sort out paperwork for all of my finances ahead of mediation and wondered if I need to include details of my student debt. I probably have around £6-8k of student debt remaining. I incurred the debt whilst my husband and I were a couple but a few years before we got married, and haven't been paying any of it back since I reduced my hours 10 years ago when we had children (I haven't earnt enough since then to need to make repayments). I wasn't sure if it is relevant to our divorce as we weren't married at the point i borrowed it.

I dontbhave any legal qualifications but I am sure it will be taken into consideration when a divorce settlemnt is being agreed. You didnt pay it back because you reduced your hours to take care of children.

You might get more responses in chat from folk who have experience of this.

But your repayments are always based on your income- not his. What are you looking for here?

That's what I was wondering. I haven't repaid it yet as I reduced my hours and then became a sahm for 7 years to benefit the family. I know the degree will be seen as benefiting me rather than the family, but it meant I was able to secure us a very good graduate mortgage, which saved us a lot of money for the first 5 years of owning a property together. I will get paperwork ready relating to it incase it is taken in to account when trying to agree our finances.

I'm not looking for anything in particular, just wondering if it is counted as debt when looking at our finances as a whole when working out assets/debt etc.

Hello - just dropping in here to say that we’ve got a Q&A live in Money Matters about debt with debt charity Stepchange. No question is too stupid - so don’t hesitate to ask the experts about any aspect of debt or managing money worries.

I suspect it's one of those things where there is no clear rule. Instead, you'll need to argue for its inclusion, along with other types of debt.
The other side may try to argue against if you lost your income, eventually it would be wiped but you can argue there are ongoing repayments.

I included mine in the financial disclosure but we had already agreed that we would both keep own debts and just split our house. It does say to include everything so you might as well.