How to find a divorce solicitor

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My H left me some months ago. I have a property that I rent out that I purchased 10+ years ago before we were married. We moved in with my DM and she transferred her house to me when we got married as early inheritance. I live In this house with our DC and he has moved in with family. No savings to speak of and no other properties.
H doesn’t want to get divorced but doesn’t want to be together either.

Im going to apply for a divorce but don’t know where to start in finding a reputable solicitor.

Any other reassurance on our assets being divided would be welcome. On paper I have two homes and he has been left with nothing, but one was mine before marriage and the other was inheritance. Will he be entitled to them?

Yes he’ll be entitled to a share of both as they are marital assets

What % will depend on multiple factors but you need to change your thinking. They are not yours. They are joint marital assets particularly if you’re been married a long time

Op it’s complicated but I was told that the kids having a good home will be a priority for a judge and also length of marriage (including cohabiting)

So I was told after about ten years it was seen as a long marriage. The starting point might be 50:50 but if you have kids more it could be 60:40 or even 70:30

In terms of finding a good solicitor I met two advised by friends. I paid about £200 an hour (this was about four years ago). I had an a4 sheet with info on assets, debts, mortgage, pension, salaries, expectations with children and both gave me roughly the same answer about what I’d be entitled to. (I still haven’t started the divorce!)

Check out the Resolution website for recommendations.

Given the length of the marriage all the assets you and he own will need to be declared and are likely to be considered marital assets. You might be able to exclude the rental wholly or to a limited extent. But if the marriage used the income then it will be considered a joint investment vehicle. A bit like a pension.

His stance on divorce is likely to change. You should confront this in your own terms. Sooner is usually better than later. He might be willing to agree to you ringfencing assets now. In the future his circumstances may change and he might have no option but to demand shares.

Thanks for the replies. Married for 7 years, cohabiting for 9

kids are with me full time. He sees there’s for a few hours every 1-2 weeks. Pays child maintenance, he was paying ad hoc so I went through CMS. He ignored all paperwork so they set the amount and he has been paying recently

Your best bet would be to start locally and find the family solicitors in your area. If they're members of Resolution it's normally a good sign that they'll do a good job, but check the reviews too.

I'm not a solicitor but been through divorce and one thing I suspect from the above is that you'll need to come to terms with the fact you both have needs from the capital, even if he's a lazy t**t. I had to accept that with my ex-wife who tried to avoid getting a job to get more money (eventually we did collaborative law and her own solicitor had to explain she had to help herself as much as reasonably possible before demanding more money from me).

If he never/seldom has the children his needs are a lot less than yours though. He probably only needs a one bedroom flat really. It's impossible to say though without 1) legal training and 2) even with that you never really know which way a judge will go, you can only guess within a range. However, I've seen cases where they divide capital according to need and then if anything is left it goes to the person who brought it to the marriage. However, LemonTT raises a really interesting point about one of the properties being an income generator which adds a whole other layer of complexity. In which case:

resolution.org.uk/find-a-law-professional/

Try here.

I’m not an expert but I would log how many hours he spends with the dc. At some point he might ask for 50:50 just to get more money / avoid paying maintenance and you can factually state he currently spends an average of x hours a week with them and has done x school runs since he left.

Also you don’t mention his salary / pension etc. That would also be added to the pot.

His pension will be added to the pot. His salary won't. His salary might indicate a mortgage capacity and in extreme circumstances an ability to pay spousal maintenance but it will never be shared.