ex is happy but will the judge/solicitor muddy the waters?

[Bluebaron1]

My ex and i have worked out our finances and what each other are happy with. Basically we have agreed to split the house 50/50. i have a larger pension (£400K and hers is only £120k), she's happy to forgo anything to do with that.

So i will potentially do quite well by the deal but I'm worried when we file that the solicitor/judge will sit her down and persuade her that she should go after more.

We've had a long decision on it and she's ver clear what she is entitled to and we are very amicable but I'm worried this could get all nasty once its goes legal?

Thoughts?

and £610k is only half of the pension and house. What about the other assets you have conveniently not mentioned?
If you are a high earner, there will be more.

confused myself now where did £610k come from?

house equity £700k (£350 each)
My pension £400k (£200k each) (or 140k after deduction of her pension)
Her pension £120k (£60k each)

£350 + £140 = £490k

No there asset apart from her car and the kids accounts.

ok got it.

Ive taken it as the £120k in her pension won't be touched she keeps it all.

OP - you need to get over the fact she had an affair. Many people here will have experienced the same - including me. You need to separate out the emotion from the task of deciding finances.

It comes across to me from your posts that you’re trying to “win” in some way by not having your pension subject to a pension sharing order.

As laudable as continuing to maintain the house is, it has little to no relevance in law in deciding what a fair financial settlement is (normally).

It appears you are both trying to strive for things which the circumstances of your case mean are probably not possible. Again, many of us on here have been in the same position.

No matter how badly you feel you’ve been treated, you can’t circumvent what the law says should happen upon divorce.

I empathise greatly with you. I know it’s hard. I’ve just come out of the same after almost 4 years of a horrendous divorce.

All the best with it all.

Now that you’ve explained that it’s to house the children I think that’s fair enough

You've still not said why you're so insistent you won't pension share. Given that will mean you keep the house which seems to be vitally important it's confusing why this is.

Unless you're wanting to avoid having your pension looked at in more detail...

I can’t comment on how a judge/solicitor will view the proposal, but this comment jumped out at me:

No savings (all used to maintain a very old large house)

I know that you’d like to house your three children for another five years, but it doesn’t sound feasible to hang onto this particular house and maintain it, tbh. As a couple, you weren’t able to save due to the house and it’s only going to be more difficult now. As PP’s have said, start afresh. Your children are young adults (even the youngest will be within a year) and they’ll understand the financial reality. Good luck.

I agree with above poster. It sounds like you are making all this convulated and financially unsound plans in order to keep ownership of what you describe as a large old house that requires expensive maintenance when your children are 23, 19 and 17. It would make a little more sense (though still financially unwise) if your children were 10 years younger.

Hopefully (for.them )your children will be soon be forging their own independent adult lives ,then what? Will you keep this huge mortgage and expensive home maintenance costs in case they want to.come home for.christmas. The financial costs for both of you would be enormous. Your ex-wife in a reduced marital settlement so can't afford her own housing, and for you in ridiculously high mortgage and home maintenance costs ongoing.

Better to come to a more.usual final settlement, and buy a more practical home that will suit you for the next 20 years, not just the next couple til your older kids leave home. Given what you think your potential mortgage could be you should still be able to find something big enough to house the younger kids, and by the time everything is sorted your oldest will be 24. Unless they have special needs in some way 24 is old enough to encourage to live independently .

You make it out as though you are somehow doing her a favour by keeping the house and buying her out. Don’t forget she will need to pay stamp duty and get a mortgage too.

have you had your pensions valued or are you going by the CETV? Without a pensions expert report there’s no way I’d agree to that deal if I was your ex. The judge might ask to see a pensions report due to the sums involved.

Your maths are wrong, have you taken legal advice? It seems as though you haven’t…

Your mortgage repayments are not ‘costs for looking after children’. Your house is an asset and presumably the value will have increased in 5 years time and you can sell at a profit.

You would not normally give your ex pet or your pension in cash. A portion of your pension would be transferred to her. Pension is worth less than cash, if you were to offset your pension and give her cash instead.

If your ex has moved in with her new partner, that would possibly be taken into account.

Your joint assets are
house £700k
pensions £520k

Does she work? Her mortgage raising capacity is relevant, unless she is moving in with her new partner.

Expected split assuming both work and earns enough to support herself and get a mortgage is 50:50. The court would be unlikely to take the children into account, by the time you get round to the hearing your youngest may be 18 anyway.

So reasonable split:

You take out an additional mortgage of £350k and buy ex out, and:

You transfer £140k of your pension to her pension pot, so each of you end up with £260k each.

You could choose to give her more pension in exchange for more of the current assets, ie the house.

The car should also be taken into account if it’s an expensive one. Say the car is worth £50k, then it would be reasonable for you to offset the value of that against more equity in the house for you.

Nb if either of you are on something like a final salary pension you will definitely need to have it valued, since the real value can be many times the CETV.

Why do your adult children not pay rent, cook and clean?

And why do you pay her maintenance?

So I'm a woman, and my situation has some similarities to OP's wife (but different in that I haven't met anyone else and that we have hardly any money to split, not the big figures the OP is talking about). I too want to house my children who are now young adults 19 and 21, STBExH wants them to stay with me too so we need to work out finances to be slightly in my favour 60:40 equity and both keep our pensions - but far from receiving any support on here I've been told to kick the children out. I'm baffled as to how that will help anyone.

I can't for the life of me see why the OP and their mum telling these 3 young people they longer have a home and they can just get a flat or bedsit etc (cos these things are easily available to young people aren't they?) against the wishes of both parents is going to help?! Of course both parties need legal advice but you know some parents actually love their kids and want them to be supported as much as possible until they can achieve independence which in the current financial climate is looking increasingly unlikely.

@HangerLaneGyratorySystem I don't know how much you earn per year but how much do you think your ex should pay you, per year, to house his adult (and one is 23!) children. £20k? £40k? £80k?

The op here is suggesting he should underpay his ex by hundreds of thousands of pounds. If they decided to buy a separate house for their kids it could possibly be cheaper!

All so that the kids don't have to, for example, share a bedroom in a new house, or one of them sleep in a converted downstairs living space.

If things were that desperate, those adult children could contribute towards the mortgage from their jobs.

I am not a fan of 60:40 or 70:30 just so that adult children don't have to sleep in a smaller room. One half of the ex-partnership often loses tens of thousands of pounds per year for that to happen.

We sorted our own and I got 25% split (this was down to a few reasons that I was happy and comfortable with) and when it came to consent order nobody batted an eyelid.

It would have been interesting if you had posted and said you were femail and it was your husband who had an affair.

I suspect the replies would be very different.

Nope taking on a850k interest only mortgage is insane when there is clearly enough income and equity to split and get a reasonable size house for the OP to house his children in for the short term. Both clearly work and any income and pension disparity is potentially due to raising children.

The decision here is driven by sentiment and an unwillingness to sell a family home - a family that no longer exists. Coupled with the ability to move on. The OP shouldn’t be saddled with that much mortgage debt either, particularly interest only

You keep saying older children, does that mean you have younger ones too? Where are they? I'm not sure that housing adults would be seen as a need according to court.

At the moment you seem to be riding high on the guilt train, she's agreeing to your deal but that may not last forever. It should go to court.

i do totally get where most people are coming from, a clean break is what is needed, however as you allude to as parents we feel we should offer as much support as possible to put “children”.
I guess with a breakdown of the marriage we feel that, even though they are older, we still will be putting them first.
As such we are trying to give them another 5 years (youngest will be 22) of stability before selling up. To make that work will require sacrifice from both sides.
In my case I’ll be paying for it all and paying support to my ex (who works full time earning £40k a year).
my point being in 5 years she will still be walking away significantly better off than if we split it all now so I’m trying to come up with a plan that’s fair.
As such I think splitting the house 50/50 at sale and ear marking £140k ( pension share) at this point is fair rather than my pension building up to £600k in 5 years and she asks for another £100k from the equity plus half of any saving I build up. (Although in reality her disposable income will be higher than mine, but she is a big Spender, and I’m not).

There parents have split up and are over compensating by putting too much into the family home that is going to have to be sold.

it is a house and you are putting too much into trying and saving it (perhaps because you could save the marriage). You can afford though to buy somewhere else and give them a stable home life - just not the house they grew up in. But that’s life. You can still support them and sell.

a clean break now and moving on separately is best for all including your children

It’s not only that a clean break is best, it’s also the fact that the court has a duty to consider how divorcing couples can achieve a clean break either immediately, or as soon as practicable.

Given the sums involved it seems likely you won't be looking at buying a one bed unit when you sell up . I don't think everyone is saying you shouldn't try to house any of your young adult children for a few years longer just that you don't need to try so hard to hang onto the " family house" to both you and your wife's detriment. People move house all the time, your children will cope.

Does your 23 year old not have any plans to leave home? Are they still studying? Are you trying yourself up in knots to keep their childhood bedroom when they are already in making plans to live independently?