Finances: house, pensions and inheritance

[Livinginamaterialworld]

I will be seeking legal advice but I’m just trying to get my head around what I should be asking for/ expecting when it comes to sorting finances.
I want my husband to be able to house himself, I also want to be able to house myself and my children.
realistically my husband will only need a 2 bed flat at the most as he is unlikely to have all the children at the same time. I will need a slightly bigger house.
in order to buy a house, there isn’t likely going to be enough money for husband to buy a flat as well. Neither of us are going to be able to get a mortgage because of debt and credit history and earning potential. Husband is die an inheritance, I don’t want or expect anything from his inheritance but is it unreasonable to ask that this money be taken into account with regard to being able to rehouse himself?
also, is it unreasonable to ask for a share of his pension or let him keep al
of the pension in exchange for me having a bigger share of the house?
his pension pots combined are about 10
times the value of mine as I spent many years looking after our children and home educating etc.
i never expected we would be separating so I was never concerned about my pension but it is something I have to think about now.
what happens to pension funds that were accrued before our marriage?
it feels like this is going to get very ugly and confrontational as I expect husband will want to keep all his pension plus have more than 50% of the house and not think about the inheritance money.
I don’t want to be greedy but I do want to house my children as they are school age and I am going to be the resident parent.

Depends what you mean by due an inheritance? If in probate then it will reduce his needs. If the person isn’t dead then it is irrelevant.

Yes you will have a claim on his pension. Whether he will trade that off against his entitlement to equity is unknown. I suppose the question is it worth it for you to trade pension entitlement for more equity. If you can’t get a mortgage then having so much savings might impact on benefits.

Sorry for what you are going through. I home educated my children (now both about to go to uni/6th form so just finished).

I split up from my ex husband when the kids were 4 and 7. We split all assets 50/50. For us, this meant he kept his large pension and I kept my very small pension. I got most of the equity on the house and he got a small amount of it for a house deposit.

He could afford a decent sized mortgage on his salary and I couldn't. I needed the equity, so had to sacrifice half the pension. In reality, half the pension would have been more valuable in the longer term since it was a final salary pension. But in the shorter term I needed the house equity.

At the end of the day it seemed a reasonable split to me, given the circumstances. Although he has never forgiven me for what he has always says I stole from him by taking most of the house equity. Even though he was unwilling to give up half the pension either.

But from everything I researched, it seemed if we went to court he would never be given more than 50% of the assets, which is what he wanted, despite me having the main responsibility for the children.

I think you would be entitled to at least 50% of joint assets and if you need the house equity, it could be offset against pension assets from my experience.

Person has already died, currently waiting for probate. the housing market is slow at the moment on the area where the property is so I can’t say when it will Be sold and the money distributed.

I am Not planning on having savings. I was hoping to get enough from the sale of the family home to buy another smaller property.

I suspect the situation will be quite similar. His pension is worth quite a bit but he doesn’t see the pension as a family asset and will resent giving me a greater share of the house equity in order to keep more of his pension.
I am Prepared to accept a smaller dive of the pension (or even no pension) on order to get enough of our equity to house my children.
I have enough years left before retirement to try and build a pension which is enough to live frugally in retirement.

And I know it sounds really greedy that I am expecting more than half the equity and a pension share when I have been sahm for quite a number of years, but as well as home educating our children I have worked as a self employed person and contributed all of my earnings towards the family budget. It was an amount of money that was more than pocket change. I didn’t have enough left to put any money into a pension whereas as my husband has paid into his pension throughout.

It doesn't sound greedy at all. It sounds very similar to the situation I was in. I was also self employed alongside home educating and paid nothing into my pension from it. My ex thought the pension should be his as I wasn't contributing the same as him financially. Thankfully the law should be on your side as it sees assets in a marriage as including pensions, whether he likes it or not. If I could give any advice here, it would be to resolve this through an external arbiter such as mediation or the court. I wish I had done.

I am not a lawyer but my understanding is that in a settlement the priorities are 'fairness' (part of which means that it doesn't matter who earned the money or who did what when) and the needs of the children, especially in terms of accommodating them. If you have children from the marriage then everything each of you brought in to the marriage will initially be considered as shareable. So both your pensions are marital assets, as is the house equity and even potentially his inheritance.

For your children to be appropriately housed "his" pension is going to be taken into account. If he feels keeping "his" pension is more important than putting a roof over his children's heads then so be it.

I would hang on too until the inheritance is received as this may be taken into account. You get 50% of everything as a married couple. Did he pay you for child care, house maintenance, house management? No. Go see a solicitor and get what you and the kids are due. Full stop. Xxxx

It's not unreasonable to want a share of his pension particularly if it's significantly more than yours. This can form part of the financial order if he agrees. In terms of pension - I believe it's only the contributions that took place during the marriage that are taken into consideration. Re inheritance I'm not sure how that works but a solicitor can advise you. Best of luck

Sorry you are going through this. I've just been through it all myself so fwiw I can share what I know - the default in a long marriage with dependents is 50-50 of TOTAL assets (equity + savings+ pension pots of both parties + assets, eg cars). You both need to look at it as a joint pot. The courts do consider home carer contributions on an equal footing as financial contributions so he is not entitled to more than you even as a high earner v a SAHM. The 50-50 split will apply if needs of dependents and both parties can be met with the total pot. By needs I mean reasonably housed to accommodate children - it might not be a house, if a flat would suffice. Proximity to schooling will be key. If not, it will be considered a needs based case with preference given to the resident parent as the dependent needs are prioritised. For needs based they absolutely will take into act earning potential of both and any inheritances received during the marriage. I would definitely delay until that inheritance is finalised. You can put a charge/ log interest on a probate property. Take legal advice and get to mediation asap rather than trying to resolve between you. They can be amazing at navigating through it all and will ensure objectivity. That said if it is clear he will not be reasonable start court proceedings asap as it takes far longer than you might expect. Good luck and take one step at a time.

Btw CMS is separate - put in a claim as soon as the divorce petition is made as it takes 5 weeks to process.

You do not get 60% share of everything as you’re married !
you are entitled a fair share of all marital assets which includes all pensions, savings, investment and equity. You can trade trade one against the other

you may be awarded more than 50% or less depending on many factors but asset sharing will first look at each parties needs, as well as standards of living, then will look to share any surplus if there is one ( usually there us not)

the inheritance can be brought in if it needs to be to reach overall fair settlement ( fair in eyes of the law) . Are you likely to inherit at some point too ? Seems unfair you’d benefit from his but not the other way round

I'm sure your lawyer will cover this, but just to get your head in the right place.

Apart from what might be the 'fair' division of assets there is some merit in allowing some 'wiggle room' in what you initially suggest, in order to have some scope for negotiation.

If your opening bid is what you consider fair, then any negotiation will leave you with less than 'fair'. Go in with some things you can afford to give up, in order to close, as close as possibly to what you really think is fair.

The first thought to give up is that you don't 'deserve' access to marital assets because he earned them which you were a stay at home parent. Have a look at what a full time housekeeper and nanny would have cost him for those years. You contributed to the family assets and for the sake of your children, if not for your own sake, you deserve a fair division of the assets to which you have contributed.

Don't buy into the myth of women taking me 'to the cleaners' in divorce. It's much, much more common for women to be significantly financially disadvantaged by parenthood. Make sure you secure the financial security your DC deserve

If we agree that I take £60k more in equity (as an example) and he takes £60k more in pension value as the trade off then it would be a 50:50 split of assets. I would be suggesting he uses his inheritance to help hiuse himself now as he can’t access the pension money for quite some years. But I haven’t taken any of his inheritance by doing so. He has more money overall due to the inheritance.
i am not sure if I will get any inheritance in the future but it could be decades away if I do.

remember pensions are not equal to equity so £1 of equity might be equal to only say £0.50 of pension as it’s not a liquid asset but yes you can offset pensions for higher share if equity Using your example 60k equity might equate to 100k pension pot.

also by expecting him to use his inheritance while you take more of marital assets is by default using his inheritance

however, if there are not enough marital assets to provide for both parties needs then courts can use the inheritance to achieve that ( unfair imo but that’s how the law will work )

Well he doesn’t have to use his inheritance. He could have a greater share of pension vs me having a greater share of equity which makes asset split 50:50. Therefore I am not gaining more than him from the assets acquired during our marriage.
If he has his inheritance over and above that then he can choose to use it as he wishes. A sensible person would probably use it to house themselves but that would be his choice. He could move way out of area and buy a cheaper property with just his equity split. he has less need to remain near the schools.

If I was suggesting that his inheritance is included in the matrimonial assets and that I should get half of it then I would be gaining half of his inheritance.
anyhow, I shall take legal advice before agreeing to anything as I need to house the children and that should be the priority for both of us.
Whatever happens, I realise that I will probably be financially the worst off out of the two of us.

Going into mediation or even court with all these statements of what he should or shouldn’t do is the wrong approach. Define your needs. Negotiate on a clear statement of that need. He will do the same. If either of you are unreasonable in that statement of need you can challenge each other. The usual reason for challenge are

1. Overstating housing need.
2. Understating income or potential income. This is usually maximised for the purpose of divorce. It is the most you could earn or claim not what you actually do.
3. Overstating expenses.
4. Hiding assets or income

See if any of these might help you - they might be able to guide you towards how you should split everything and make sure its fair for you and the kids. https://iamlip.com/help-guides/the-court-process-of-dividing-your-marital-assets-finances-and-pensions/
https://iamlip.com/his-money-her-money-our-money-who-do-marital-money-and-assets-belong-to/
It's important that you and the kids are given enough to be fairly taken care of as you will be the resident parent. There are many factors to take into account which you can find on these pages and this website. Hope this can help!

If you’re going to have a larger share of the house and not any of his pension then you’ll need a pension expert to compare the value of each £ in the pension to each £ in the house as it’s not equal. £1 in a pension scheme isn’t equivalent to £1 in a house or cash as it’s not money that is accessible like cash is.
Pensions are usually worth quite a lot and people want to hang on to them as they know that. My ex kept saying ‘you’re not getting your hands on my pension’ but it has been shared so we each leave the marriage with pensions of equal value.

Firstly, thank you everyone for your helpful advice. I’m going to ignore the inheritance for now, it doesn’t feel like I should have any say in how it is spent or used. If it looks like I really won’t be able to house my children in any suitable home then I will ask for it to be taken into account in my husbands ability to house himself. But I don’t want it to come to that. I would be happy to buy a shared equity home if any are available (none at this present time within the schools area and a couple of miles around).

so I’ve done a bit of research. I think my husbands pensions are worth around £400,000 and mine is worth around £50,000.
so I understand that pensions and equity are not considered to be equal £ for £, but even if we say the pension is worth 50p for every £1 of house equity that means my husband has pension value worth £175,000 more in (equivalent) house equity than what I have. So would it be reasonable to suggest he keeps all
of his pension and I keep £175,000 more of the house equity?
I really don’t care too much about anything other than providing an adequate home for my children at this point. They will suffer enough during this divorce and I think the least that they deserve is a suitable home.
unfortunately our house is probably worth only slightly more than my husbands total pension value so he probably won’t agree to keeping all of his pension in exchange for taking less of the family home value. I totally get that he will be focusing on housing himself and how that is affordable. It’s just so difficult to try and split one home into two when house prices are so high and our borrowing capacity is non existent. There isn’t going to be any winners here. I do think if it was financially easier I would have divorced a few years ago. But it has now got to the point that I can’t live like this anymore.

So I have been worried about how me and my husband can both manage to house ourselves separately. I have been trying to work out how I can afford a house near to the kids school without being greedy and unreasonable.
meanwhile my husband is trying to find a housing option for me which means I need less than half our our equity so that he can keep the rest and keep all of his pension.
oh And I also found out that he has quite a bit in savings too, despite racking up debts and therefore not being able to contribute towards the household bills and food costs etc. so really he has been saving his money for a rainy day whilst I have been struggling on a low self employed income to pay most of the household running costs.
if I had any doubts about ending the marriage, those doubts have now disappeared. He must either think I am totally stupid and will just agree to whatever financial suggestions he makes or he is stupid and thinks that he is actually being reasonable and that this is fair because I was not working and financially contributing whilst I raised and educated our children.