Divorce/house sale

[Whitepjs]

Hello, I'm going to be arranging legal advice today and am trying to get my head around the advice guides on here but I'm finding it hard to work one thing out and wondered whether that's because there isn't a simple answer, can anyone help me please?

Does a house sale wait until the very end of the divorce process once everything is finalised or can that take place during the divorce timeframe?

Any time is fine - the more that you can sort without waiting for court orders the better, courts are very expensive!

Divorce itself is easy to apply online, you don't need a solicitor. The consent order for finances needs to be agreed, you may need a solicitor/mediator to help you come to arrangement, it then needs to be presented to the court once your provisional order (nisi) has been granted. Its can all be very straightforward.

We had sold up and both bought new homes by the time we divorced

I would speak to your solicitor. You and your OH will need to complete a Form E with complete disclosure of your assets and liabilities, before the split of equity can be determined.

Can you tell us more about your situation OP? Do you have children? If you don't have any children and you are happy to agree on how you split the equity (and you're amicable) then you could proceed with the house sale on your own terms. But you may be entitled to a higher percentage if you have children, or if you have less income/earning capacity/ borrowing capacity. In that case you'd be better getting independent legal advice and agreeing a fair financial settlement.
You can ask a solicitor to complete a separation agreement which details what will happen to the assets and any child care arrangements etc. This agreement can then be put into the consent order for the court to approve when the divorce is finalised.

I've been researching this myself because I want to buy my DH out of the house before the divorce is finalised..it's the only way we can live separately. Hope this helps!

That's really helpful thank you, and good to hear it is possible to sort without waiting for the divorce to be finalised, that must have helped you move on quicker. I'm assuming the proceeds from the sale of the house sit within the consent order - is there a template on line to start this or does it form part of applying for the divorce online? I'm trying to get my ahead around the sequence of events.

Apologies I replied before the other replies. We have 1 child who is 8, we should have them 50/50. Our assets are generally even in terms of pensions and salaries, a little variation which may have a small impact on equity share but not significant, we don't have anything else really. I will speak to my solicitor today then to get the ball rolling with this, I was worried we may have to wait to consider selling until the very end and the length of time that would be.

Yes, you'd have to agree on how to split the proceeds of the sale and that would go into the consent order. If you had both already purchased properties prior to that time then you'd agree on each keeping their own house I guess?

There is advice and guidance online, but I would recommend having a conversation with a solicitor about it all. I had a 30 min free consultation yesterday with a solicitor from PDAlaw.co.uk which was very helpful. You can just contact them to request it.

Check AdviceNow and IAmLIp websites too

This is what the solicitor advised me yesterday re the separation agreement:

"You are confident that you and DH will achieve a reasonable settlement. The agreement must be incorporated in a document setting exactly the terms agreed as follows:

How much each of your respective shares will be of the property.

Proposals to repay the loan.

Closing of or dealing with the joint bank account.

Payments of all household expenses, including mortgage and utility bill until the property is transferred into one of your names or sold.

Child arrangements for the children to spend time with the other parent once you start living separately.

Child maintenance. You have already looked into this on the CMS website."

Sorry, missed an important part of the advice he gave:

Once you and DH have reached agreement on all matters listed in my email below, each of you must seek independent legal advice on the terms before signing the agreement.

The signed agreement can then be incorporated in the Consent Order with Form D81completed and submitted to the Court for a Judge to approve. The D81 gives an overview of your respective financial positions to the Judge for him/her to approve the Consent Order.

Please note that the agreement is not a legally binding document, and a Judge can overrule the terms if they are considered unreasonable. However, it will show your respective intentions for the future. That is why it important for each of you to seek independent advice. If you do, a Judge is more likely to approve the Consent Order.

Lots of people seem to not wait and sort the house selling first, all depends whether it’s agreed between you or not.

as our house didn’t sell for months and months my ex is now buying me out, and if we don’t do it as part of divorce proceedings (consent order, consent order in progress, or deed of separation) then he’d have to pay stamp duty so in our case we have had to get on and sort the other stuff at the same time

This has all been so helpful, thank you for sharing your personal experiences with me.

We sold before. Money held in escrow by our conveyancer.

How did this work? When was the money released?

It hasn’t yet. We are still going through financial proceedings as my ex can’t be reasonable and won’t negotiate.

I sold before and bought. We had an interim financial agreement just covering the house sale and purchase. Then went on to work out the rest (pensions etc).
But it was complex, and my main negotiating tool was having a buyer and me saying I would only get out if we could get my purchase done at the same time.
Ideally you get all the financials tied up at the same time.

But if you had sold the house first and then you needed to do some evening up of the pensions, where would that come from? I keep thinking it's easier to change the % on the house proceeds than anything else?

We are in same position - house sale has been agreed but not yet at consent order stage.
Agreed 50:50 split and assumed funds would be distributed accordingly.
We would then complete divorce formalities

Worried now solicitor will keep money until financial order in place ?

That's why we had an interim order. Although it was simpler as I had very little pension and he had a big pension pot. So it was pretty much him just giving me a share of his pension pots. So we could treat the two halves separately.
And it wasn't the top recommendation, it was just neither of us wanted the house, and I needed somewhere to live and couldn't afford rent on my income.

But it must be easier to allocate shares in a house sale than allocating pension pots? It sort of feels that the allocation of the house should be 'last' to allow pensions to just lie with the relevant parties?

Possibly - it wasn't advised. But we split savings and house. Then had an Actuary report to split the pensions. It cost money but I wouldn't do it any other way, as it was someone outside who knew pensions inside out who sorted it.
But we were doing strict 50:50, and the pensions split to give me 50% of the income

@MollyButton Was the actuary recommendation very different to what the split would have been based just on CETVs?

I’m interested to know that too@MollyButton

Okay - yes the nitty gritty is that there were a lot of pensions involved. Probably about 8 or more of my Ex's. So exactly how to split the pots was complex. In addition some were final salary and some investment based.
So there were a lot of different ways that you could split the pots. In addition the CETV is a "spot" figure on a specific day, and the actual value of each pot on the day it is split can go up and down.
Of the various pots some I got 80%, some my Ex got all and some I got all.
But it was heavily complicated by the final salary schemes.
From everything I got a "pot" of money that went into my new individual pension (quite separate from my Employment pension).
A lot also depends on you and your Ex's age.
Which is why good financial advice is crucial.