Spousal ?

[Whatonearth2021]

Asking for a friend…how likely is spousal to be awarded where children are not dependent and 50% of estate is around 550k? What other factors would be relevant?

I get spousal on similar numbers but I have mitigating factors and one child (adult) dependant (sen)

The only time I’ve heard of spousal being awarded is when one person earnt £300k and the other had given up work and done stints abroad to facilitate the higher earners career. I can’t see it being awarded here.

Sounds like a borderline case for something short term to me. He earns well but not megabucks after tax and she is capable of working full time and could improve her earnings as she has at least 10 more years to work which will influence the outcome somewhat. The key thing though is that based on the capital split there is plenty to meet her needs. She buys a house for £250k and then there's £300k left to generate an income on top of the full time salary she can earn.

I suspect she could go to court and be awarded something short term but the amount wouldn't be worth the risk of the legal fees.

Someone I work with got divorced recently, the salary numbers were about the same ( guy earned about 65k ), assets were a lot less, the wife asked for spousal but it was turned down

Not a hope in hell of SM on £70k gross.

My now DP’s EW asked for spousal. At the time she worked PT & earnt £10k (refused to up her hours or earnings). He earned £80k basic.

Judge apparently laughed it out of court at the first hearing. She was told to increase her earnings & start supporting herself.

I only know one case where that was granted and she was much older, had sacrificed her career to being up multiple children and support him furthering her career. He was also extremely wealthy. She had multiple health issues that prevented her earning any sort of supporting salary. It wasn't a massive monthly amount either.

I'm really sorry but your friend is highly unlikely to achieve a spousal maintenance award. Also it's wise to remember that spousal is usually short term.

The WORST typo 😬. Should have said "bringing up multiple children". Fucking autocorrect.

I think the significant factors are length of the marriage, the relative incomes of the spouse, whether the spouse can reasonably be expected to become self-supporting (disability, or close to pension age anyhow) and whether the SM is intended to be enduring or for a fixed period (say to give the time to retrain to enter the workforce with restored earning potential)

Seems to be very much in a case by case basis.
I’m a female higher earner (although self employed and unpredictable, < £85k) STBEXH lazy, min wage part time, exaggerated health conditions.
Both only a few years from retirement age.
He’s going for substantial maintenance until retirement to meet his highly inflated budget.
My housing needs more as have adult DD with health issues to remain living with me.
Got indication at FDR that doesn’t sway enough to depart from 50/50 even though he could house on substantially less and I would have a mortgage.
AND Maint for a short period whilst he tried to increase his income would be reasonable!

Can’t work out if the judges just favour men, or work to get the weaker party up to their ‘needs’ regardless of what it leaves the other with.

@Scareystress I don't think the law favours men or women but it is unduly protective of the lazy. In most divorces, there is no maintenance these days because the weaker financial party can still provide for themselves as a grown up. Unfortunately that doesn't apply to loser husbands like yours or loser wives like mine!

Hence my point on another thread. Spousal maintenance is needs based and only paid when the recipient is so pathetic and incompetent that they can't function and provide for themselves like a grown up.

@BetterFuture1985
I’m struggling to understand what ‘needs’ mean. The amount he was asking exceeded his highly inflated needs, and not only did the judge indicate his needs were still within parameters, showed no regard on the affect on my modest budget or already limited mortgage capacity (due to age) by paying anything. And that I am housing an adult DD with significant needs.

Totally lost faith in the family law system,
Of course STBEX refusing to negotiate since the indication was mostly in his favour. So looking like another £100k
to go to final hearing, and hope for a more sympathetic judge.

Surely she can support herself? 70 thousand isn't enough to pay spousal out of. It's a shame she didn't work to increase earnings/train when she was younger but she had to take responsibility for that. It's not his fault.

I have a friend too whose husband earns far more than her ( 10 x at least ). Although she cannot claim that her pausing her career to stay home with kids (a joint decision) elevated his salary, it has definitely stopped her ever being able to earn in the £60k + range. So now she's 55, working at a salary FT of 25,000. Would she have a claim for spousal?

Sorry for hi jacking your thread OP.

Why has it stopped her Lizzie? I had children, worked full time ( as did husband) and increased substantially my earnings … why was she not able To?

if he’s on 250k there’s a chance but unlikely to be joint lives. She’d more likely get more capital and clean break

It's not that she couldn't @millymollymoomoo but they had enough family income without her work so there was no need to. And it gave them the luxury of her being a SAHM when the children were a little older.

Highly unlikely. Marriage is no longer seen as a meal ticket for life. She’d not be in hardship. She’d just have a reduced standard of living. Judges tend to want clean breaks.

But icky though right. Marriage is over and she puts her hand out and wants him to pay for her for ever more . If he earns that much her share of rhe assets will allow her to live better than most.

Yeah, she doesn’t want to be married for whatever reason, and that’s fair enough, but wants access to the money, that’s awful really

@BetterFuture1985 I think that's incredibly unfair- what if like me you are in your early 60s and have spent the last 25 years working with your H but don't own a house etc but the income is reasonably high, more than enough to pay support for a good few years still . It's an extremely individual thing. In the OPs case I think no, because she can still own a house outright and have plenty of cash in the bank- but it's not one size fits all

@Scareystress I would expect a similar deal although I'm not lazy and have worked alongside H for 20 odd years, I'm 61 and he is slightly younger. I would be going for 65/35 in his favour till I was67. We don't own a house so my rent would be quite high and I would struggle to get much of a job worth having now as have a few health issues. I can understand why you are frustrated but it's right I feel that it's case by case

Highly unlikely.

Starting point is 50% on all marital assets, houses, pensions, savings, debts etc

I'm not really trying to defend her but her argument is that she would have been in a better position financially now (because she herself would be on a decent professional level salary) if she had not stopped work for family reasons, because of course when that decision was taken 20 odd years ago divorce was not on the horizon.

She could use her capital on settlement to fund the gap but then she'd have less of a pot to buy a home with.

Not sure about SM, but she should get a share of his pension.

I got it. Disabled DC meant working and having a decent career was all but impossible. I tried, but care for DC was hard to find, and exH didn't step up at all.

All cases are individual so she needs legal advice, but from divorces in my social circle, much of which are fairly high earners, I would say very unlikely. The only one that did, had dependent children, she got more of the capital and he didn't really fight the spousal application as she threatened to make access to the children extremely difficult. He earns circa £150k and pays £1000 per month spousal but crucially that ceases when the last child reaches 18. The judge made it clear they wouldn't be amenable without that clause so she had the choice to accept or risk what she got

The tide seems to have turned against spousal payments.