What should I be fighting for?

[Summerkoala]

Hi Everyone,

I'm looking for advice on what I should be asking for/fighting for with finances following separation.

My ex and I only have the asset of the house and he will buy me out using money borrowed from a family member. He will therefore have no mortgage on a 3 bed townhouse moving forward and be paying a minimal amount to his family member each month.
I have moved out into a small 2bed bungalow with a monthly rent of £1200. I work part time as we have two young children (2 and 5) and am claiming universal credit to help with this. My UC covers money for both children, and my ex says this means he shouldn't be paying me any maintenance towards the children. We have a 60/40 split at the moment, is this fair? I have always been the children's primary caregiver and he is trying to penalise me for paying more into the house while I was on maternity leave.

Also, once I accept any offer, my UC will stop and ill be eating into the money to cover monthly expenses while he has disposable income from having no mortgage.

We have the court hearing later in the year and I don't know what to ask for. He's offering me a buy out amount based on the lowest valuation of the house, subtracting cost of sale and early repayment fee. Shouldn't he buy me out on the highest valuation? Or at least a half way point?

Would the court take anything else into consideration? Eg. He earns more than me, will have less outgoings moving forward. I am in quite a lot of debt from having to move out without any furniture or white goods.

We both have pensions, but there is not a big difference between them.

No other assets.

What should I do? Should I accept his low offer and just get it over with? Or should I fight? Anyone have experience with this?

He’s a shit and behaving like my ex did. If he has changed childcare arrangements for a day they are with him, that is on him to pay for it. Same with the early repayment charge - his decision to do that, not yours. Just be aware that if he is keeping the house and has gone crazy at the CMS, he may well ask a court to have more time with kids so he doesn’t have to pay you anything (or like my ex did - apply to have them all the time and make you pay). And he might go this route out of spite regardless of whether you are trying to be fair or not.

Is the difference in what he is offering and what you could be entitled to really only 10K?

If you use the average valuation there is £143k in equity. As the lower part time earner who was the primary carer you could get more than 50% so possibly 80 or 90k rather than 55k.

Save all the abusive messages separately as you may need these as evidence.
If your solicitor says don't accept the offer then don't accept the offer.
He can't make you pay for nursery. If it's his day then it's his problem. If it's your day then you can do what you want including with your mum. This forum is full of threads of single parents having to pay nursery fees without sharing the cost.
Stand up tall and stand your ground. Remind him that you're saving all these messages and you can and will use these in court. That you can and will take him to court and that he can say what he wants to the kids but he may want to check with social services how they view parents who drag kids into parental disputes.
Then block him

Were you still pregnant when you moved out/met your new partner? You must have been with them a while to be on verge of looking to get a mortgage with them, are you already living with them @Summerkoala?

If he is buying you out, use the money to secure a deposit and buy your own home. Please think about the future- even if it's not the perfect home, you will own it one day and have security.

Thank you all so much.

It's so hard to know what to do and so overwhelming. I really do appreciate all your advice

No, my youngest was 6 months when we separated and my partner and I have been together for just over a year (so we'd been separated for just under a year). I know it was really soon to start another relationship, and my God am I being punished for it now! But we are thinking ahead to the future and would like to live together, although we are currently living separately and she lives 3hours away so it is tricky.

Hi Everyone,

I wonder if anyone has had similar experiences with mortgage payments?

Since not accepting my ex's offer for a buy out on our jointly owned house, and since applying for CM, he has now stopped paying the mortgage to try and force me to accept his offer. He has cancelled the direct debit and I have had confirmation of this. I have contacted the bank and they suggested moving to an interest only payment plan for the next 6 months, but he is not willing to look into any alternatives to may the payments manageable.

I was thinking I could try and cover the interest only payments myself, on top of my own rent, but I just can't.

He has also stopped paying into his pension, claiming he cannot afford to pay into it, but also claiming that this will mean he can claim more of mine in the settlement in September.

Has anyone had a similar experience? Any advice on what I can do to avoid the house defaulting and hold on until September?

Assuming mortgage is in both names then you are both liable for the payment. He is cutting his nose off to spite his face because he won't be able to get credit himself after defaulting.
I would write to him and say that you are going to take put a loan to cover the interest on the payments and that this will be added to the financial settlement so he will end up paying half the interest in the loan anywaym
Also don't worry about him not paying into pension. The difference in valuation now and in 6 months will be marginal (unless he pays in £'000s every month) so it's just a few hundred quid in honesty.

Any chance you can request the court hearing brought forward ?

You need to re engage with a solicitor. You can't go back and renegotiate a financial settlement down the line once it's signed and sealed, and you should not be settling for something that you don't feel is fair to get it over and done with. Settle out of court if you have reached a mutually agreeable outcome from a place of having all the facts at hand.

CMS is nothing to do with UC, if you don't feel you want to get any more advice from a solicitor then at least you need to get hold of the facts in order to be able to back yourself and stay out of court.

Thank you. I wasn't sure if liabilities would be taken into consideration in the final hearing? Or perhaps I could request that they are.

I've contacted the court previously to ask for the hearing to be brought forward but they're quite hard to pin down, and seem to have a huge backlog, so not sure that's an option.

Thank you. I have a meeting scheduled for a couple of weeks time with the Law Clinic which was advised by a previous poster (thank you so much!) so I'll hopefully get some advice from them as well. I'm trying to get as much advice as I can 💪

The joint assets which include debts will be taken into account in the financial settlement. It's a whole position and the mortgage debt is part of it and the loan to service the mortgage too.
Ideally ask for a payment holiday with the mortgage company as that is the simplest

Generally only debts incurred in the marriage. Borrowing post separation is done at your own risk.

What you have to decide is whether you believe he intends to follow through with what is self destructive threat. He has told you he wants to keep the property, for that he needs a mortgage. He lives in the property at the moment. It’s not in his interests to not pay the mortgage. However there is a good chance he fundamentally can’t afford to keep the house if he needs to repay what he borrows from family and the existing mortgage.

On this issue you need to decide whether to call his bluff. There are costs with going interest only or taking a payment holiday. I would test the water on whether he is bluffing before I committed to either.

What stands out as why I think he is obviously talking nonsense is his threat to stop paying into his pension. That just increases his CMS.

The thing you need to achieve is finding a way to get him to climb down the ladder he is busy climbing up to his own detriment. Remind him that he is the one who wants to buy the house outright. He is getting in his own way.

Ultimately he won't be paying off the mortgage at all once he's bought me out. His brother has leant him the money to buy the whole house, so he'll be left mortgage free and only be paying his brother back about 1/3 of what the mortgage repayments were.

He's saying that he has the money in his account now, ready to pay off the mortgage, but won't use it yet as he doesnt trust me moving forward. So, at the moment he is struggling to pay me CM as well as the mortgage, hence why he's lashed out and stopped paying the direct debit.

He says that if I don't accept his offer, then he'll have to give the money back to his brother and put the house on the market for a quick sale at a lower price.

Sounds like financial coercive control. I would ask the bank for a mortgage holiday or take up their offer to go interest only.

He says he cannot afford to pay the current mortgage payment and child maintenance, but if you go interest only it might reduce the mortgage payments by more than the child maintenance i.e. the interest only mortgage payment plus the child maintenance might be less that the current monthly mortgage payment. If that is the case his argument for not paying falls away! So I would at least look into that and suggest it - in writing. If he refuses that then he is clearly just being a controlling arsehole.

I cannot believe you have allowed this man who has your child 40pc of the time to put her in nursery yet you have to pay for it?!

Thats not how things work at all!

If you pay then the children are with you that day

It is tough luck that he has stopped paying the mortgage - he is damaging his own credit rating to spite you but I suspect he knows they can suspend payments etc

He has not paid CSA for over a year because he is used to abusing you and getting his own way.

If he keeps it up he could be threatened with repossession but he won’t keep it up will he?!

Dont worry yourself with the mortgage

And once you get that money from him out it into a child savings account then use it as quickly as you can for a mortgage deposit or similar!

Well he is prince.

You have a needs case, so what matters is who needs what and you can both be ideally securely housed. Do you have it in writing that his brother has agreed to give him £150,0000? Because if you do, that is evidence that his needs are significantly less than yours. If he already has the money that is even better.

A good barrister would argue you should get most of the equity in the house, as that will equalise your positions. As you earn less you have less mortgage borrowing capacity so your needs are higher. And of course the children are with you the majority of the time as well.

His mortgage antics will hurt him much more than you. And any judge will rain fire on him for that, he will pay for it, not you.

Tell the nursery you wont be paying for any extra days, that's on him if he wants it. And dont let your mother provide any childcare on his days either. Look up grey rock and use that technique for all your communications with him. And privately laugh at his pathetic little tantrums.

Document all his parental estrangement and child abuse and use it against him in Court. The only way to beat people like this is to play them at their own game.

Tell him you agree to it being sold but as you have an interest in the property you will prohibit a sale below market value.

He is being buffoonish because he is a buffoon. Don’t react to provocation. Leave it a while then just tell him you note his decision but remind him that he cannot act unilaterally in this matter. Confirm again that you would agree to a fair settlement if he wants to buy out your share.

Dont play chess with. Pigeon.

This. He's pmaying silly buggers but you don't have to join in. Just get on with your life.