Child access during separation / refusing to pay child maintenance

[Haditnow]

My husband and I have been separated for 8 months. He won't engage in discussions about divorce or make a separation agreement. He has twice failed to pay a monthly financial contribution and is threatening to stop paying enough to cover his half of the mortgage, bills, childcare, food, etc. Despite this he is adamant he wants to take our children away to Europe for 3 weeks in the summer. The children and I live in Scotland. He has lived in Europe for the past 6 years and sees the children (9 and 12) about once a month, sometimes less. They aren't happy about being away from me for such a long time and I don't think he's actually competent to take care of them for this length of time. My eldest is autistic and my husband has refused to accept the diagnosis. He really doesn't understand what she needs or how to manage her meltdowns. He will be holidaying with his parents, his dad has recently had heart surgery. His parents are also not very competent or able to meet the girls' needs, they only see them every one or two years and had nanny's to bring up their own children. Can I take legal steps to ensure a monthly financial contribution and / or prevent him taking the girls away for such a long period as they are not happy to go?.. and should he be allowed access if he is not contributing financially? He has never spent more than 5 days alone with them i.e. Without me there. He has said in the past he planned to take them to work with him as there is a field they could play in! He works in an industrial plant. It would be more than 30 degrees in summer. His main objective is usually to go to work, have someone else look after his children and then he turns up for dinner. I usually do this but now it will be his mum! TIA

Thanks for all the advice. Regarding occupational rent. Background: He chose to move to Europe to work 6 years ago. I told him: I think this is a bad idea, we won't be moving there but I'll support you to do it for one year. We travelled there during school holidays, he came back fairly frequently but almost immediately began demanding we move there. As time passed his behaviour has become increasingly volatile and emotionally abusive. He told our children that they need to move to Europe and if they don't he won't come back for their birthdays. He then did not ( they were 8 and 6 at this point so pretty devastating for them). I tried to keep the marriage going, still visiting him and doing marriage counselling - he walked out of this. Anyway, my point is that, he has access to the house, comes whenever he wants, eats food, uses the car, turns on the heating with the windows open, does nothing re: maintenance or cleaning of the house and when he sees the children it is in our house. So would I really be expected to pay rent to him? I want to sell the house to be free of the tie but he won't discuss. Child maintenance service amount would be better than the current will he/won't he contribute nonsense. I'm interested to hear people say child maintenance and child access should not be linked. My understanding was that they are inherently linked by the cms i.e. If he spends more time with them he would contribute less.. Thanks all

Yes OP if he does not live there and you do then he can absolutely go after you for occupational rent.

Access & payment are linked in the sense that if he was to have them for X nights a week he would have to pay less. But what you are suggesting is that he should have to pay in order to be able to see his children, not only is that incorrect but it’s a harmful mindset. He could pay nothing at all and you would still have no right to deny him access to his children.

You need legal advice.

It would be worth discussing with a solicitor how to move forward with the house.

At the moment he is still controlling you.

At the end of the day if you want to get divorced, get financial and child arrangement order then you can start that process yourself even without his agreement. It will be long and messy but you can get there. If he sees you are serious about progressing the divorce he will probably engage.

It suits him to keep you reliant on him. But it doesn’t suit you or your children.

Yes, exactly. It’s shit, but you need a lawyer.

[Edited to add- if he won’t engage, then the only way to do this is through the courts. His incentive to engage is then that legal fees will take up any equity or spare cash you have, so better to agree things]

Update. In case anyone else reading this and taking notes about their own situation. I have got a solicitor now. In Scotland there is no such thing as occupational rent so I don't need to worry about that. She says he is absolutely legally obligated to contribute financially every month and I am within my rights to decline permission for a three week European holiday given the girls are not happy to go and he's never spent more than 5 or 6 days on his own with them. My solicitor is starting the divorce process using unreasonable behaviour. She recommended doing this to prevent him raising an action in Europe first which would be expensive and complex if it happened. We can then pause (cist) the action for negotiation purposes. Thanks for all the advice / feedback. Feeling better for taking some control myself.