Fair split?

[pushkintetal]

Currently separating - one 20 year old (student) one 16 year old

Only assets are similar pensions and equity in house - split of which should enable both of us to buy somewhere new. He earns slightly more than me.

However I received £100k inheritance from my DF last year (the only inheritance I will ever get) - this immediately all went to pay off a chunk of the mortgage, nothing left over.

Ex still has both parents, they are very well off and he stands to receive a sizeable amount in the not too distant future as they are elderly.

Am I being unreasonable to ask for all or at least a portion of my inheritance to be ring-fenced? With a clean break it just feels so unjust that he would benefit from my inheritance yet I couldn't from his.

I would absolutely be asking that your 100k be considered in the split. I think its only reasonable to he honest.

We are hoping to avoid solicitors by using mediation but when I raised the inheritance issue he went nuclear

I would ask that it be ring fenced but I don't think legally you have much of a leg to stand on as it was not kept seperate to your joint assets, worth trying though.

Has the split been relatively amicable? Can you both house yourselves and your dependent child without including the inheritance amount?

We would both have to get a mortgage but obviously with my inheritance, mine would be smaller.

Of course with his inheritance he will ultimately be a lot better off than me

Mediation is a good idea for you. With ours they just sat there whilst ex and I discussed everything. The absolute beauty of it was that their presence meant that ex didn't dare suggest anything outrageous. He would have gaslit me in to believing he was right without them. Yours is a perfectly reasonable request, which may or may not be granted, but as it's reasonable, he wouldn't be able to 'go nuclear' in presence of mediators.

ok to ask but I can only stay sane by starting with low expectations

Legally he doesn't have to agree as it was an asset gained during the marriage, whether he agrees is completely dependant on how reasonable he is.

One idea you could use in mediation is that you "ring fence " the 100k for the DC. So that it's not split between you. He may find it harder to argue that point. You can then use this for uni fees for whatever for the kids.

If you wanted to go aggressive on him, you could point out that you could stall on the financial order and then if his parents did die in the next few years you'd still have a claim. He could take you to court to force through the financial order but you could self represent and he would incur costs that would offset the amounts we are talking. All the while he'd be hoping one of his parents didn't pass away during this time.

You inheritance is an unmatched contribution and there is a good argument for keeping it for yourself, or at least a proportion of it. It came at the end of the marriage and hasn’t been matrimonialised. Caselaw says legally you are entitled to keep it or a sizeable proportion of it at least. But the risk may be that if you try to keep it for yourself, you won’t settle your dispute at mediation. If he refuses to agree, you won’t have an agreement and then there’ll have to be court proceedings when that money might all be consumed in legal fees (if you use lawyers). So decide how much you want to press for it and how much you’ll let it go.

I would say the fact it was used to pay, in part at least, for the family home means it was matrimonialised. He has pretty much shown that he isn’t open to the suggestion it is ring fenced. Whether there is a reason for this, he may argue he made an equally unfair contribution to the family pot. As you say they could argue the value away in court.

OP: be very mindful you are better off getting him to agree outside court. Don’t argue in terms of a future inheritance which doesn’t exist, it is irrelevant. Think about some concession you can give him today.

Not as much of a lever as you would imagine. They have split already. If the current pot is big enough and includes her contribution as a martial asset it will be split. He is in a much better position to ring fence a future inheritance.

I would also stand by my view the OP won’t benefit from playing hardball here. Being aggressive could backfire especially as she is the one with something to lose. It’s unlikely that even if his parents died soon that that inheritance would be relevant to the divorce. Her’s is if she put it into the family home.

@LemonTT I believe there was some case law around an inheritance that came after a divorce and the ex did have some claim but I do agree that bot being aggressive is probably sensible.. hence my first post