Realistic budget

[Captain1]

My ex and I are in mediation. Unfortunately my ex is transfixed on a figure (£550,000) rather than looking at the assets and dividing them up.

whatever I suggest she always comes back to “ I ‘NEED’ £550k cash in order to survive. She is 47 and earns around £40k a a year and we have no dependent children.

In order to promote her ‘need’ she’s done a budget that suggests that excluding housing her need is £2725 a month and she only takes home around £2300. Hence she needs the money to buy a house outright and £550k is the price.

heres her budget:

Utilities - £684
Car - £258 (vw up)
recreation - £569 ( including (£400 a month for holidays)
Food £658 ( including £300 for a dog and 4 cats)
Personal £556 (clothes,hair,massages, lottery etc)

I offered to split the house after sale and buy her out of the pension and add a bonus but she won’t budge. Am I being unreasonable?

She will get:
House - £370k
Pension £100k as cash (or £150k as pension sharing)*
bonus £50k (I earn more so my recovery will be faster)

*The pension will still leave her with £120k pension in her name.

For clarity I’ll be left with £220 cash and £410 pension.

She might want £550 but surely she'll get 50/50 if no dependent DC. My exh wanted 80/20 split in his favourite for our business and wanted me to have the house with about £10k mortgage left on it. I insisted upon 50/50 for both as business worth more than house and I had 50 percent shares. I certainly didn't want to live in our house anymore after he left knowing he'd been taking OW there. Anyway I tried mediation and it didn't work so we went to court. In the end the Judge ordered I got 65 percent of house as had 2 DC still dependent and loser stbexh only wanted every other weekend and then often cancelled some of those weekends at short or no notice. The Judge ordered the business was sold either to me or to stbexh for 50 percent of valuation or sold to third party and house sold and equity shared in 65/35 in my favour and to pension share which meant I got some of his pension to even it up after 21 year marriage. He should have taken 50/50 when I offered it. The Judge basically told him this, said I had made a more than fair offer and he had no reason to drag me to court. He had to pay my costs. In your position I'd offer 50/50 and clean break. How much she thinks she needs after the divorce is not your concern, and if she thinks she wants more she'll be expected to work more hours or get a better paying job or cut back to needs not wants. If you offer 50/50 and pension sharing and she turns it down and drags you to court, you will win and she'll have to pay your cost for turning down reasonable and fair offers, especially as no dependent DC. If you have older DC keep in touch with them and offer them any spare money.

Good advice thanks

@Newbutoldfather Your wife could claim for spousal given your high earnings, but better to give her a larger share of the assets and a clean break.

I agree. Courts prefer clean breaks whenever possible.

The OP will catch up to his ex wife in terms of overall wealth due to hi slarger earnings.

What’s op is made redundant/can’t get a high paying job/falls ill and can’t work as hard/long etc

why dies he get all the risk ?

no one is saying try to shaft the ex but her needs are being more than met and she can also look to better her finances/incone/pension etc

even considering spousal

say its 500 a month for a few years ( and here it’s not needed as no dependent children nor needing time to get back into work- that would be 12k difference. So say it’s 5 years not 2, that’s say 30k.

not hundreds of k in assets

@millymollymoomoo What’s op is made redundant/can’t get a high paying job/falls ill and can’t work as hard/long etc

The OP could request the consent/court order to be amended in such circumstances.

Unless both parties wanted it, spousal would not be a first option here.

It looks like the issue is needs or lifestyle criteria. If it falls into needs then the ex’s lifestyle expectations will need to be funded from her income and a 50:50 split. If lifestyle then she could be able to argue for a larger share of the equity. But the OP isn’t that big an earner and the wealth pot isn’t huge either.

The OP is going to be way better off post divorce because he has a high income. His ex will be fine on her salary but her lifestyle is taking a hit.

I don’t know anyone on a family income of 200k driving a VW Up, unless it is a car for the children or second / third runaround. What do you drive?

I recently leased vw Tiguan, before that I drove an old (2014) vw Amrock.