Financial Settlement - Reasonable?

[Bub1765]

I went into my divorce thinking I was being quite reasonable with my offer for settlement but 6 months on I seem to be getting nowhere. I've had legal advice and got the impression that I'm being reasonable, in line with a court outcome but not excessively generous but my STBXW seems to be expecting a lot more and ongoing financial ties for a long time. I would be most grateful if those who have settled or been subject to a final hearing think this is within the right ball park:

H: 41, earning £102k gross per annum. Net income per month of £3,635 after commuting costs, child maintenance and taking sole responsibility for shared debts.

W: 39, earning £14k part time. Net income per month of £3,183 when benefits and child maintenance added to total. Universal credit element is £671 of this. Was retraining to earn more and recently graduated, has now chosen not to pursue this during divorce.

Children: 3 (ages 12, 9 and 7)

Assets: House £110k equity (£385k minus mortgage and cost of sales); Pensions £190k, Cars around £10k.

Liabilities ex mortgage: Debt of around £8k.

Proposal:

Children: 4 nights with me per fortnight, 10 nights with her. 50/50 split in school holidays. This part has been agreed and is not contentious although I am more than willing to do more to enable her career (but this balance would pay her a decent amount of child maintenance).

Assets: 90% equity to her, 10% to me. I will agree to stay on mortgage for 4 years when youngest is at secondary school, at which point she must either remove me from the mortgage and pay my 10% or sell. Pensions 70/30 split in my favour. Each keep own cars.

Income: Clean break on income. Child maintenance paid.

For context, my STBXW is earning beneath her earning capacity and is unwilling to do anything about it. Childcare would largely be covered by additional UC and I would happily pay the rest but I am much less willing to pay this amount without a clear goal of improving her earning capacity and ceasing to be dependent. I would estimate - conservatively - that her immediate earning capacity is £25k and this could rise to £40k. It could go rather higher with a bit of effort but I won't crystal ball gaze.

Points of contention are that:

1. She wants to stay in the house for 14 years when youngest is 21, me remain named on and contribute to the mortgage albeit not 100% and then to sell and split in her favour. I think this is a bad idea because she won't do anything to improve her earnings now and both of us will probably find ourselves with insufficient capital to buy again in our mid-fifties (unless she got the lion's share of the equity at that point, in which case only I would end up unable to buy but obviously I don't think that would be at all fair).

2. She wants spousal maintenance but because she has universal credit of £671 I would have to pay a lot to make any difference to her income, to the point that I would have a materially lower income than she does. I don't think this is fair on our children either as it would leave me barely able to cover my own costs and much less able to provide for them on an ad hoc basis. My counter position is that I could agree to cover certain expenses (e.g. hobbies, uniforms, school trips) outside of the CMS arrangement.

Would welcome thoughts?

Again,@Bub1765, you've got it all wrong.

Mine and my exes bottom line throughout our divorce was simply,

'What is best for our kids.'

Totally agree with this.

It does not matter one bit why you are getting divorced. The fact of the matter is that the negotiations has now changed from a relationship to a business transaction and there are three parties in this negotiation process: you, them, and rhe kids.

I have lots of clients who find another party will not accept reasonable offers to settle disputes (not divorce law matters). That is when it gets hard - who will push the other to the brink of expensive court proceedings; is one side funded or happy to do a case without lawyers and that kind of thing comes into play. My ex asked for an extra £100k (which he got) despite our having reached verbal agreement at home , supposedly to take the children on the expensive holidays we took them on before divorce (and then after divorce never took them on holiday ever !!!) but I still gave the extra money (or rather borrowed it) just to be done with it quickly. (Yes some lawyers do have to retire early but I set up on my own from home in the 90s so can work as long as I can type and think).

Sometimes people are happier to pay things direct eg I have helped our children buy a first property. My ex has to a lesser extent helped them too as we would both have left our money to our children when we die anyway and we both thought getting them started owning a property was a good idea. I am sure he is happier with some of his money having gone directly to adult children for that than receiving less from me in the divorce.

A clean break (other than child maintenance) is a really good idea for everyone if you can manage it as everyone knows they are clear of all claims so best not even to agree to £1 maintenance for the spouse a year as even in 20 years' time ( an ex hippy then eco millionaire found out your spouse can come back and back and back for money unless you have a clean break (and make sure you keep copies of the consent order for decades and decades as your solicitor and the court will not)

The perfect divorce:

• no need for solicitors other than to get the thing signed off
• minimal communication other than child related matters
• minimal impact on quality of life of the children
• Clean break and a sensible child plan and maintenance agreement

Thought of another thing. A lot of things that children with parents that divorce miss out on are things like child ISAs. Make sure you don’t make rash decision that will have long term detriment to the kids.

Op - are you aware that you can come to a private family based arrangement for Cms? It doesn’t need to be based on the figures they give or paid through cms. Ie you can offer to pay her an extra £200 in child maintenance every month if that’s what she thinks she needs for her income. Child maintenance isn’t counted as income for universal credit. Just saying!

Personally I’d pay the £200 and say you won’t let her keep the house until youngest is 21 but you will do a bit longer than 4 yrs - add an extra year or two. It will take that long anyway to fight it!

I think your offer is basically reasonable (I had a needs case which went to final hearing)

Shame that in at least three material ways you ended up with a divorce that wasn't in their best interests then.

I think those arrangements can still be overturned.

On the house, I've already conceded on 4 years so I don't plan to concede anymore. Each year of concession costs around £8k in rent that could be money paying down capital on a house I own so I've already conceded £32k of dead money and an extra two years would push it too far without getting a much bigger chunk of the equity.

@EliflurtleAndTheInfiniteMadness Unfortunately front loading doesn't work on people refusing to maximise their earnings and living off universal credit because if they save too much money their benefits stop.

One of many reasons I feel like she should get a job commensurate with her abilities like 99% of other parents do!

You are way too focused on her job and if you end up in court this could look like bitterness and bite you on the ass.

I'm afraid that once again your assumptions are so far off the mark @Bub1765, that I simply don't know what you're talking about. Neither do I have any interest in your thoughts on my life.

I can only assume given your bizarre visceral response to me is that something I have said, has unsettled you. My cynical thought is that it's because up until this thread, you had indeed given no thought whatsoever to what was best for your children, focussing entirely instead on making sure your stbexw does not come out of this smiling.

I think the financial arrangements sound fair. By the time the youngest is in Secondary school she should be able to afford a mortgage or other way of paying the 10% equity to require.

Would the pension not be 50/50 up to the time of divorce then each being responsible for your own pension after that 🤔 I'm not sure how that works.

If she can have UC as top up I think she would be wise not to increase her hours yet. I wouldn't underestimate the difficulties of the one doing 5 out of 7 days childcare, appointments, clubs, meals ect plus work. Especially when kids are first adjusting to two separate households. There can be a lot of angst. I don't think she should expect a top up of income instead of UC but think you paying for clubs ext is a good compromise.

I'm not sure how UC works though and how long she is allowed to work part time and top up with UC with older kids.

OP’s silence is deafening when it comes to any comments that focus on the kids first.

You could think that but you would be wrong. I just think you're a bit haughty about not receiving universal credit even though to all intents and purposes you're as dependent as everyone else who does, you just have a patron. So I thought you needing shoving off your pedestal and it's obvious that you really, really don't like your moral superiority being challenged!

Face facts. You're setting a bad example to your children. You're not working enough and therefore you're not paying your fair share of tax for things like their schooling in the way the rest of us do. You're preventing your ex from saving a nest egg should he lose his job, meaning that if he does you're all going to be screwed (including your children) very, very quickly. And you're depleting your children's future inheritance just so that you can feel morally superior to benefit claimants even though you do exactly the same thing as they do.

If you don't want any more responses, then suggest you get off your high horse and stop posting snobbish bilge.

Normally pensions are 50/50 but given her share of the equity there would have to be at least some amount of offsetting to be fair. How much that is I guesstimated at 70/30 in my favour. It's difficult to say without the pension report.

I already pay for all the children's clubs because my STBXW spends all her spare money on wine whereas I don't drink more than once or twice a year!

I'm not bothering to respond to them because they're coming from the usual suspects who haven't read the whole thread. The kind who stick to a set of beliefs that women always know what's best for kids and men don't and who all, without exception, only ever think what's best for the kids when they're with mum. None of the usual suspects ever give a damn what kind of hovel the children have to cram into when with dad, or the terrible example they set to their children by being dependent or the way their children have to go without now and into the future because of their refusal to take financial responsibility for themselves.

Could you point me please to where I've detailed that I'm not working, not paying the higher tax rate, or that my children don't have a lovely nest egg? Because none of that would be true.

The poster a few above is correct, your bitterness will be your undoing and it will only hurt you.

My families crimes seem to be that we have acted in our children's best interests, and that, on a 100k+ salary, it wouldn't have sat right with my exh to have had the tax payer funding a lifestyle he could afford himself, for his children. If that makes us morally superior, that is fine.

Again, with the focus on “working enough” and zero focus on the kids.

I say this with kindness, you are too angry at your ex and not focusing on the kids at all. Whoever gets what, it will never be exactly what either of you wants. Just accept that and try to make the best of a bad situation.

When your divorce is done your ex might up her game and go earn twice as much and then will you be angry about that?

Focus on the kids.

Does anyone know if it's possible to block people so you can ignore all the posters who turn threads into a farce?

@arethereanyleftatall Get a job and sod off.

@NosyJosie I'm not angry, I don't really "do" angry. I'm just in disagreement with her position.

Label it however you please. I’m telling you it doesn’t matter. I’m sure she could argue that you could get a better job too.

My ex told me to get a better job as well (I already had a great job but an opportunity came up) then complained that my new job wasn’t work from home and one of the girls was “unsupervised” for an hour and a half each day. Also complained during covid that I worked too long hours at home and should ask for furlough to focus on teaching the girls.

Don’t be that guy. Be the dad they need and forget about her work for now.

He shouldn’t forget about her work now as
shes working part time and expecting op to I) fund it ii) secure much more of the assets on the basis of it ( and may well then go and earn more as soon as it’s sorted!)

op is right to suggest she returns full time and support herself and the assets split on that basis.

op, suggest you leave the thread, push to get it to court if necessary where they will swiftly tell your ex she’s unreasonable in her expectations

I swear it is just one guy that comes on these divorce/separation threads time and time again for validation and if they don't get everyone fawning saying how wonderful they are, they turn nasty, can't cope and want to block people and obviously none of them ever "do" angry 🙄

@millymollymoomoo I disagree purely for the fact that yes she could work full-time, but then she has the added pressure of the children 10/14 days and either this should be reduced, or more financial compensation (nothing to do with CMS either as that is for the children not compensation for additional workload) as it is unfair

@HeresMyBreakdown That's probably because most people disagree with you. Maybe it's you and the other "usual suspects" who are actually the problem?

I've seen a lot of men "piled on" here by people like you, totally unreasonably and completely at odds with the law.

@millymollymoomoo Checking out now. They can carry on posting their bile, I won't be reading it 😂

Child maintenance does not cover child care costs that would be required for your ex to maximise her earning potential. Either you would have to provide childcare by reducing your income potential, or pay for it given your higher earning potential. Or you could pay more than minimum child maintenance.

This would enable your ex to maximise her earning potential.

Why should the state be responsible for subsidising your ex to raise your children?

Who are you to say what your ex's earning potential is (with no reference to caring responsibilities)? Would you be happy for your ex to declare what your earning potential was and then judge you on that imaginary basis?

Do you think a divorce court would deal with the reality of childcare and earnings or would side with the ex about potential ability to earn unless this was very clear cut - an existing job, ability to increase hours, childcare for increased hours etc. The courts put the child's interests first. They don't put imaginary scenarios first. Especially those of a bitter ex who doesn't want to support his DC because he thinks his ex may benefit and thinks either she or the state should pay.

Own your responsibilities. Don't pay spousal maintenance but pay more than minimum child maintenance. You can afford it and it's for your DC. This will give your ex choices. Plus you won't come across as judgemental and controlling. Unless you want to punish her but then no advice will help.

The OP has said that her time with the children could be reduced, but felt that she would struggle with this because it would mean a reduction in child maintenance.

She would be much worse off if they went for a 50/50 split with the children, so I'm not sure that demanding additional financial compensation for having them more is going to cut it. Surely that could backfire as the OP might push for 50/50 and she would be worse off than ever.