Buying a house while separated

[Pegs11]

Hi, does anyone know if you can get a ‘clean break’ order all signed and sealed while you’re only separated and haven’t yet started divorce proceedings?

Nope you cant

@millymollymoomoo do you happen to know why this is the case?

Because marriage is a legal contract that needs to be terminated.

OK. Argh… I wonder if there is another way around this… the reason I ask is that we have separated at a time when our house sale is nearly complete - we don’t know yet if we are going to divorce, but we do need to figure out how we are going to divide the equity so we can buy our own places asap. Is there any way we can do this?

Separation agreement

@Isaidnoalready Aha! is that legally binding?

I believe a separation agreement isn't legally binding but has legal weighting and could only be challenged if for example it was very unfair to one party etc.

I met with a solicitor prior to filing. Context: short marriage, no children, only asset is house. Both earn similar and have similar pensions. Ex and I agreed house is 50/50 and keep our own cars and pensions etc.

Solicitor said if we sell house before financial order she can include a note saying we have sold, split 50/50 and both used equity for onward purchases.

Ours is a straight forward amicable divorce though

@NeedSleepNow good to know. Thank you.

@Alexis92 Thank you for sharing this.