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’m pretty sure that if you give her spousal maintenance that’s taken off UC pound for pound

child suport isn’t taken into account for UC

At least 6 months +. I haven't applied to the court for a financial order yet in the hope mediation goes somewhere.

I'm not planning on reducing my earnings. I might make those earnings look less secure (by contracting) to motivate her to maximise her own.

I don't think she will be able to afford legal fees easily, but presumably she can get a charge against her share of the house?

but how has she afforded to date?

does she / you have pensions?

Have you moved out?

Please read the whole thread 🙄 He has explained in great detail.

@paprikaforever I don't think she's spent much on solicitors to date. The rest of the answers are in the thread.

Very interesting thread despite a lot of misguiding assumptions about how divorce courts operate.

What the matter comes down to it seems if your ex unwillingness/inability to work extra hours. How many hours is she currently working? You mentioned she could be ok working 25h, so I'm assuming she is currently working less than 20h?

It is absolutely correct that a judge doesn't just look at current income but potential income. That includes potential increase due to skills as well as increasing hours proportionally to the care needs of the children.

There's been a mention of the menopause. Is that the reason your ex gives for her unwillingness to increase her hours?

Health reasons would definitely be a consideration for the court, especially in terms of disability and the menopause is certainly getting more press at the moment as to how it can amount to disability for SOME women.

The menopause has affected me in a way I have never imagined it would and I was a single mum working FT in a demanding job with a daily commute of over one hour each way when my kids were still at nursery/primary, with no help at all, so not unfamiliar with the harsh demand of balancing the two. Yet this was not half as hard as it became when the menopause hit. The mixture of amxiety (not recognised as such as I'd be er suffered from it before) and the serious sleep issues that came with it left more utterly shattered than I was then even with babies not sleeping through the night.

So I wouldn't totally dismissed it as you seem to be doing.

However, there ARE treatments to help, it is indeed not a forever disability in most cases, and most importantly, it sounds like she could cope with your offer working 'only' 25h rather than FT with little commute.

Is this her only objection to increasing her hours or is there anything else?

who’s paid for the mediation?

Ours was eye watering (but also worth it)

my ex paid my legal fees up to £5k

My solicitor put it to his solicitor and it was agreed that reasonable as i. was a sahm with no savings and ex was a higher earner

4 pages just of the OP’s comments!

i can’t find where OP clarifies where he is living 🤷

@vivainsomnia I think in general the requirement of ex-spouses to pay spousal maintenance for health issues, whilst the current law, is nevertheless abhorrent and needs reform. If I was put in that situation I would leave the country before paying it. But it is irrelevant in our case anyway.

@paprikaforever I will probably pay legal fees for a consent order. I will not however be funding legal fees to have spousal maintenance extracted from me by someone who is refusing to maximise her income. She can fund that from her share of the assets.

If I was put in that situation I would leave the country before paying it.

and leave your children?

I think in general the requirement of ex-spouses to pay spousal maintenance for health issues, whilst the current law, is nevertheless abhorrent and needs reform
It's not so much health issues as it is disability.

This isn't abhorrent if indeed, a disability genuinely prevents the person from working more hours.

I don't see why this needs reform.

If this is not the issue in your case, what reason does you ex gives for not increasing her hours?

I would be gone the minute the youngest was 18. I think it is disgusting the way the state makes people pay maintenance to people who get sick after separation.

@vivainsomnia I think it has been allowed to become normalised but it is abhorrent that someone can be forced to pay money to a person they are estranged from for reasons that are not their fault. Taken to it's logical conclusion, alcoholics, drug addicts, people who got injured in accidents that were their own fault etc can claim from an ex partner. It needs to stop.

The menopause is not a disability. Yes, it can hit some women hard but it is NOT a disability.

Definitely not a disability and it would be a disaster if it ever became a reason to adjust a financial settlement on divorce because you can guarantee the floodgates would open. Suddenly every refuse to work wife would be using it as an excuse, the same as spouses use anxiety, depression and back pain now that seems to always go away once the divorce has been settled!

Oh for god's sake you still don't get it do you?...I said that looking after the children every night during the week and working fulltime and dealing with menopause was a lot and could understand your wife not wanting to work full-time (although Perfect Polly will be along in a minute to tell me I am obviously doing it wrong because it's been so easy for her 🙄)

I do get it. I just think you're very self centred and cannot see the big picture. You can understand your needs but not whether it's reasonable to think other private citizens have a responsibility to meet those needs (legally a grey area, morally the answer is clearly that they don't)

@HeresMyBreakdown it’s a lot, i totally agree, regardless of what stage of life you are in. The mental load is intense.

another poster labelled it disability, hence the push back.

Definitely not a disability and it would be a disaster if it ever became a reason to adjust a financial settlement on divorce because you can guarantee the floodgates would open
It can very M Ch be a disability. To be fair, before I went through it myself, I thought exactly the same. Then it hit me, and my threshold for coping with every day life took a massive nose dive.

In no way am I saying that this should warrant SM. I would abolish SM in every case. I'm just trying to work out why she is so adamant that increasing her hours are not an option despite retraining.

Without knowing her reasoning, it's hard to advise on what a judge would likely say. Yes, they do consider, and rightly so, potential income but they also consider other things, so again, knowing her rationale for not increasing her hours would help.

Lol self centred from the man who doesn't offer to have the children every weekday whilst he works so his wife can get a full-time job without the added stress of running around after 3? children every evening!!!!