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Divorce/separation

Here you'll find divorce help and support from other Mners. For legal advice, you may find Advice Now guides useful.

Fair Offer to ex DH

94 replies

Twiglett2 · 25/11/2022 13:54

Can anyone advise if this offer seems fair?

House vale £280k, mortgage £45k. I want to offer to pay off the mortgage and give him £60k

He is the higher earner, I work part time. We have 2 school age children (both over 10). He does not see them at all and has not for months. This is their choice and he's made zero effort to change the situation. He currently lives between his parents' and gf / affair partner's.

We had been together 19 years, lived together over 16 and this property is our marital home.

OP posts:
ttcttc · 25/11/2022 20:34

Twiglett2 · 25/11/2022 20:32

@sneezingpandamum

Sorry I meant mortgage not divorce.

@ttcttc

No pensions, either of us.

I think he'll also be out for as much as he can get too. There's no guarantee that because he's a cheat he will lose a large percentage. Obviously if he's hidden assets he will be likely to agree to keep them but why do you think he has hidden assets? Also if he has, he's likely to "lower" his earnings to drop his child maintenance

Twiglett2 · 25/11/2022 20:47

His cheating has no relevance to how the equity will be split. But I'm certainly not wanting to be screwed over when he has caused all of this and don't see why our children's lifestyle should suffer due to his selfishness.

Once the finances are settled I won't be reliant on CM, he's already been a shit dad, if he wants to be even shitter by paying as little as possible that's up to him.

OP posts:
LemonTT · 25/11/2022 21:10

ArcticSkewer · 25/11/2022 18:24

She won't get much from CMS if he chooses to hide his income, which is really easy to do if self employed.

And that will be reflected in the form E unfortunately.

Twiglett2 · 25/11/2022 21:16

@LemonTT

Which is another reason I don't see the point in wasting thousands to trying to get him to disclose. I could have all of his accounts looked at and it will be very obvious he earns more than he says, also the dividends he takes are a fair amount.

I'd rather use all this info to try to get him to agree to a favourable settlement.

OP posts:
OnceUponAThread · 26/11/2022 02:42

You seem to be misunderstanding how equity splits work and what happens with the mortgage.

The house value is £280k, the outstanding mortgage is £45k. That means you are playing with £235k of equity. That's the bit you own and the only bit that comes into the split.

If you were to go down a 60/40 route in your favour. You get £141k of equity and he gets £94,000. The remaining mortgage doesn't come into it.

You then have options. If you want to keep the house, you take over the remaining £45k mortgage, and you eventually buy the rest of it. Or, you sell, walk away with your £141k, and buy somewhere new (either outright or by adding a mortgage).

If you only give him £60k. That's 25.5%, giving you 74.5% of the assets. You'd have £175,000 of equity.

If all you're splitting is the house, a judge is unlikely to look on this as a fair or equitable arrangement. A PP mentioned they'd got a similar split, but that's because they'd offset the pension. So the overall asset split was back to 60/40. If you could prove he had a bigger pension or tons of savings or went after the business, you might be able to offset similarly. But if all that's on the table is the house, I'd be surprised if he went for this, and it would be unlikely in court.

Your confusion seems to be around the £45k mortgage, but this is irrelevant. You don't get to deduct that from your share and say "look it's 60/40 now". You can choose to take on that mortgage or not, but what you're haggling over is the existing equity, not the future equity.

If in an alternative universe you both kept paying the mortgage till it was cleared, then he would be owed more than he is now. Because you'd be looking at a share of the full value not the current equity. (He'd need £112k to get 40% - more if house prices rose).

You can't factor your potential choice to pay the outstanding mortgage into the equity split. That's not how it works.

Aubree17 · 26/11/2022 03:23

I think your being really sensible wanting to avoid a large legal bill that would potentially gain little.
If your happy with that arrangement and he agrees to it then go for it.

It's not uncommon for resident parent/lower earner to get a higher share of the equity.
And by your own admission you don't think there's much more assets.
Even if your wrong (and I doubt you are) you've been very clear you'd rather secure the house than have a long drawn out legal fight that would probably gain little. There's nothing wrong with that.

Monty27 · 26/11/2022 05:17

Trouble is op will he pay maintenance?
I bought my ex out 50/50 with a court order he paid £400 pm for w DC's.
Remortgaged the house to raise the money and he stopped paying maintenance because he was a dodgy got there was nothing I could do about it.
So then I had to increase my working hours to full time and pay out for childcare. I even received some childcare vouchers as finances had become so grim.
I could kick myself for not having the house signed to me in lieu of maintenance.
Just saying.

Twiglett2 · 26/11/2022 05:49

@OnceUponAThread

Yes, it was the mortgage I couldn't get my head around. I thought giving him £60k and paying the mortgage off (it's in his name only) seemed fair. I now get I'm going to need to offer a larger lump sum, but i'll be pointing out the offer is lower based on the fact I'm offering to not even look into what his business is worth or his actual earnings. Thanks for the advice.

OP posts:
Twiglett2 · 26/11/2022 05:55

@Aubree17

I'd definitely rather come to an agreement between ourselves. A friends costs were nearly £30k and their house is worth less than ours (it went to court over pensions snd savings).

@Monty27

I'm pretty certain he will initially, in fairness to him he's been good financially since he left, but i think that's because he currently feels guilty. That's why I want to try to get as good a deal as possible so I don't need a mortgage. I'm happy to go full time once my children are slightly older and feeling more settled.

OP posts:
roseheartfly · 26/11/2022 06:16

It seems fair.

Maybe get a solicitor to initiate the offer with the detail about not wanting to force full disclosure.

Just to wake him up and get the ball rolling. Show him you mean business and it's time to get it sorted. Then agree with him to complete the divorce yourself.

You will more than likely get more than 50% of the house in court and then some if he's not careful.

Im not saying that you are entitled or not entitled to it's.. but its reasonable to want to bring it to a close. And it's reasonable to want to protect your children's home. It sounds like you are taking a shit situation and trying to resolve it for them.

So selfish for a partner (male or female) to procrastinate like this. Particularly if they broke their vows. Yuk I hope it get sorted soon for you all.

Elieza · 26/11/2022 09:02

Do you/would he think you would qualify for legal aid because you are working part time?

if so and he’s delaying about how you split the house money, I’d tell him that he can argue for years sorting this out as it will cost you nothing. He’s the one that will have to stump up the legal costs from his pocket. Or his half of the house sale. And it can run to tens of thousands. My cousin was £25k in this exact same situation which ended up at what said cousin offered partner in the first place! Someone on here was £30k.
Scare him! (I don’t actually think he would pay, I think it comes from the sake and what’s left gets split between you but he doesn’t know that).

Then go back to your offer and it may sound more attractive to him, no fees, done quickly, no prying into his accounts, no claim on his private pension, frees his capital up….

Elieza · 26/11/2022 09:03

However I would be taking proper legal advice and I would personally be prying into his business. Did he put in for furlow? How much did he get? That’s be an indicator of his earnings.

LemonTT · 26/11/2022 12:48

The problem with not completing Form Es and disclosure is that you have a fail in the legal process that can lead to an agreement being overturned. Which is something neither of you want in the event there is a major change on either of your financial circumstances. A lottery win might never happen but if you have done things properly you have a flawed agreement and that is not good.

Monty27 · 27/11/2022 02:28

OP if you have to remortgage to buy him out and he stops paying maintenance you'll have to go back to work to pay for childcare and higher mortgage.
I trusted exdh to pay maintenance after I remortgaged but he didn't. And there was zero point in pursuing it through court as his financial information wouldn't have been available.
On the other hand you could ask him to sign the house to you in lieu of a percentage of maintenance.
I wish I'd done that.

silentpool · 27/11/2022 03:05

I would go to court. I filed all the forms myself. My ex refused to go to mediation or fill out the Form E, so I filed an application to take it to court (Form A, I think?). I then paid for a bailiff to deliver the summons, which make him realise that I was over his shit. I was going to force the damn divorce and he realised it.

You can hire a decent lawyer to sit in the background, oversee your agreement for fairness and give advice, which is cheaper. However money spent on a good lawyer will pay dividends in terms of the results you get and expedite the process.

I represented myself in court, which was not at all scary. The judge was very kind.

The judge will not sign off on an unfair agreement. If you don't know what he has, you can't make a fair settlement. If you know what he has, you can negotiate properly.

Later in life that pension division might make all the difference in your retirement. Get your big girl pants on and get it done.

Twiglett2 · 27/11/2022 10:12

@Monty27

I won't need a mortgage to pay off the outstanding mortgage, or only a very small one. I know I will beed to go back full time at some point so that's fine, I already work 3 days.

@silentpool

I want to come to an agreement with him and get everything signed off before putting in for the divorce. I'm aware having a financial consent order done alongside the divorce and it all done together is the ideal but I think this way will be easier. It's what a few of my friends have done and it was far less stressful and much cheaper. The friend that went to court spent £30 on fees.

OP posts:
Twiglett2 · 27/11/2022 10:14

@Monty27

Are you referring to child or spousal maintenance? There is no chance I'd be awarded spousal and tbh wouldn't want him supporting me. You can't use CM to negotiate as he is legally expected to pay at least the minimum anyway.

OP posts:
millymollymoomoo · 27/11/2022 11:46

There is no way to forgo cms in lueiu of assets
even if he agreed to it the op could after 12 months take it to cms who then have jurisdiction and it would simply be assessed on his earnings and not consider the settlement. He would 100% be advised never to agree that

BetterFuture1985 · 27/11/2022 23:14

Beware of solicitors unless you see more than one. Some - especially the ones who do a free half hour - sometimes suggest outlandish settlements to get your business.

The reality is that most divorces are only rubber stamped by the court and are settled in negotiation so solicitors don't actually see that many divorces get settled by a judge, let alone the more modest ones. I think the statistic is something like 0.3% of divorces being settled at a final hearing.

My wife's first solicitor suggested she would get a Mesher Order until children were 21 (my youngest was 4 at the time), 70% of the house after that even though I'd be 55 by that point and I would have been locked out of home ownership for 17 years, joint lives spousal maintenance (yeah, right!) and half my pension. I earned about £75k at the time and she was a student. My solicitor laughed when the first offer came through. My wife burned through thousands with this solicitor and she thought I was being unreasonable insisting it would have to be settled in court because she was misled by a solicitor who had probably gotten results like this through negotiation with the poor unfortunates who didn't seek their own legal advice but didn't stand a chance if it went to court!

In the end she went and saw some other solicitors and had a reality check, which saved her the cost of pursuing a court settled outcome.

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