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?

I don’t agree with the whole narrative of but she has the children 10/14. And can’t work full time clap trap. And neither will the courts

she is going to be compensated- by receiving much higher share of equity

then it’s up to her to pay her way with employment and cms

If and when she earns a better income you will need to approach the courts again for an adjustment , you cannot base any present settlement on your expectations

@Medschoolmum there is no guarantee the OP won't get his child maintenance reduced after a year anyway.

Longterm if people feel that she should be working fulltime, then her having the children every day that she works on top of trying to kick start her career is unfair and at odds with the fact that OP won't have them at all during his working week and a paltry £40k extra for 11 years of this is not worth it.

Yeah, I agree. 50/50 would be a much fairer arrangement all round. The ex wife will then have plenty of time to focus on building her career, and the OP will have to do more of the hands-on childcare.

He has already indicated that he would be happy to take on more of that responsibilty, and was mainly agreeing to the 10/4 night split because it seemed to be in the ex wife's best interests. If it turns out that she doesn't agree that it is in her best interests to have the children for a greater proportion of the time, then absolutely the OP should step up and carry his fair share of the load

What I don't think would be reasonable would be the wife insisting that she should have the children more often, and then demanding that the OP should pay more money on top of the child maintenance to compensate for the extra workload. It would be her choice to take on that workload.

@Bub1765 Do you plan to buy another property or rent it for the next 14 years?

I would plan to buy upon release from the mortgage, hence a four year maximum for STBXW to release me. It would not be acceptable to me for her to be an owner occupier if I could not be.

@Medschoolmum Very well put and you're quite right, it's entirely my STBXW's choice within a range of 10/14 to 7/14.

@PocketSand Controlling? I'm afraid you rather lost my attention when you began using inflammatory language.

I'm well within my rights to ask whether maybe a graduate could earn more than £14k a year, especially when that graduate's life plan is to demand an income from me. I'm also well within my rights to question her earning capacity, just like she would be well within her rights to question my earning capacity if I quit my job and took a job at Tesco.

Your understanding of how a court would deal with the matter is vastly different to all the solicitors I've spoken to.

I would only have to do this if there was spousal maintenance and she improved her earnings. But I don't plan to pay spousal maintenance and she wouldn't improve her income if she received it, so your point is academic at best. The scenario would never arise in practice for one reason or another.

The fact she could earn more doesn't actually matter unless you go to court and then a judge can chose to make a division on the basis that she isn't maximizing her income. At the moment what matters is what if anything extra you're willing to offer and what she is willing to agree too and whether those two sets of data overlap at all. It doesn't matter who's being or not being reasonable at this stage. It's simply about whether you can both agree on something or not.

It seems you aren't willing to pay spousal maintenance or agree she can remain in the house till youngest is 21. Both are these are very reasonable in your circumstances. So what if anything extra are you willing to offer? Would you move on pension split at all? Would you be willing to find another way to get her that extra £200 (a month?) she wants? You could formalise arrangements to pay for specific things in relation to the children, it wouldn't be hard to agree that amount across 3 DC. If you're not willing to move on anything then you tell her that and that you'll need to resolve this in court if she's not happy with the current offer. It doesn't matter what posters say because she's not suddenly going to turn around and say she realises she was being unreasonable. She's either willing to agree or not and if there's no overlap in what you're both willing to agree then you need a judge to resolve that for you.

I think because with mediation I've been to five sessions and conceded a lot at each one whilst my STBXW has compromised on nothing. I've also been subjected to a mediator who my solicitor suggested was so bad I should stop attending and insist on a replacement. So I think in this context I was wary of conceding any more ground unless I was being unreasonable. Apart from the usual suspects posting here who lack credibility, the views I've received are that I'm roughly in the right ball park with potentially some movement on the pension. Obviously the longer this takes though the pension becomes less of an issue because what she gets is incredible given her income and will rise in CETV by around £7k a year.

I'm not sure whether you are saying that spousal maintenance and a Mesher Order for 14 years are reasonable or not but I think you're saying not? Either way, my solicitor's view was that it was not reasonable and this seems to corroborate with what people are saying here barring the usual suspects.

In terms of further income to her, I would be reluctant to hand her another £200 to spend at her discretion because it would enable her to avoid improving her earnings and could cause problems when it's time for the house to be sold if she hasn't sorted herself out to be able to get a decent sized mortgage in her sole name.

I could however agree to pay additional amounts for the children's direct benefit such as clothes, hobbies etc. That might swing it as she would lose SM £ for £ and if I had to pay it, I would refuse to pay for anything else so she could be worse off.

Also, whilst I know the law doesn't work this way, given that our income difference in our case is mostly attributed to what happened before we met and before we married, I'm already somewhat aggrieved that she is treated as having made an equal contribution when she really hasn't. Whilst that has no bearing in law, it does make me extremely reluctant to be any more generous considering the law is already stacked against me and more than generous enough to her.

Earning potential of a wife can be taken into account during a divorce (as happened when my husband divorced his exw).
Sounds like you are being very considerate in your divorce settlement approach and I wish you luck
It sounds like you may just have to head down the legal route to get things resolved........

@Mumofoneandone Hopefully not but it is looking possible. Perhaps the threat of court and losing most of the home equity to legal fees will focus minds.

you are 41
your eldest is 12
you are in a senior position on £102k a year

You want us to believe that by your late twenties you had established yourself fully and essentially have plateaued for the last 12 years?

🤔

@greenbeansrock I'm not massively bothered what you believe but before marriage and children I had:

1. Completed all my professional qualifications;
2. Been promoted up to one level below where I am now;
3. Was well on the way to where I am now;
4. Earning 4 times what my STBXW could.

In the same time, career wise, she had done:

1. Nothing

Since then, she spent 6 years as a SAHM. Then I supported her - including most of the running of the home - for six years whilst she got a degree. I consider that a tie.

Today:

1. She is qualified to get a good job but refuses to do so;
2. She can earn much more than a quarter of my income.

I've done far more for her career than she ever did for mine.

And one final point. If people who stay at home support careers, does that mean if I earned only minimum wage that would be her fault too? Just curious how this theory works?

That wasn’t the point i was picking up on

it was the idea that she’s done nothing to support your career 😆

so she has a degree

but no work experience at all?

And one final point. If people who stay at home support careers, does that mean if I earned only minimum wage that would be her fault too? Just curious how this theory works?
i don’t understand your point

question rather

oh o get you

no if she’s stayed at home to support your career
and you were on minimum wage

i would be wondering what the hell was going on with you both

Spousal maintenance is not a “father paying for his children” thought. That’s child maintenance

For context
by 29 I had

completed all my professional qualifications
was earning c80k
had children in quick succession in early 30s
returned to work
got promotions multiple times and earned more
20 years later earn well over 200k

Did not outsource
home/cooking/gardening/
did use nurseries but did all school drop offs /pick ups, assemblies/ plays/ parents evenings etc, managed homework etc etc

it’s perfectly possible

op ex on other hand has been supported to do a degree
wont work full time
wont increase earnings
Expects op to support her to do little over next 12 years

op is being more than reasonable here
she will be given short shrift in court

and by the way I am not unique as my friends in rl have done similar. Only on mn do we see this while ‘sacrificed career - she never had one!- and ex could only get where they are with support. Usually it’s more a case of achieving career in spite of there’s not because of

to quote you @millymollymoomoo

I have curtailed my career to ensure I can leave work at 5 and pick them up from school at 5.30.

to enable your husband to finish at 8

Yes and when you add on child care costs for the three children to enable leaving for work at 8 am and returning at 6.30 the wife will be up a creek without a paddle . . .

Yes
I held myself back at times
and picked up kids
and could have rose faster though ranks.
there were times I passed over promotion when my children were young while my ex did not
the point I’m making is it’s absolutely possible to earning 100k without so rice ‘supporting you’ to enable it
snd it’s possible to have children and still perusing a career

but the point remains
op ex didn’t have a career to sacrifxe
now refuses to better her earning
and Will be ’Compensated’ for ‘supporting op’ with a high share of assets
but now she needs to step up and become independent not expect him to keep her for the next 12+ years

that is not a reasonable expectation