What's a reasonable financial split to ask for? No kids, so should be simple?

[Turtletunes]

Husband and I are both 53 with jointly owned house. He works full time on £204,000, I'm part time, minimum wage after destroying my own career to be SAHM 🙄. I have pension pot totalling about £140,000, he has total pension pot of about £1.1 million. Children are grown and independent.

I want to sell the house, split the equity 50/50, which would enable me to buy a 2 bed starter home type house outright. I think I can swing this with him but I also want some of his pension. Not to profit or punish him in some way, I'm happy for him to end up with more pension than me, but I just want to be confident that I can actually afford to buy food etc in the future. I'm sure he will object to this as I contributed nothing financially for years and I'm also sure he has narcissistic personality disorder so will be difficult about most things.

What's a reasonable amount of pension to ask for do you think, that a judge would be likely to agree with, assuming husband wants me to have none of it? I want to try and settle things between us but I shouldn't think that will be possible, so I'd like to ask for an amount that a judge would be likely to rubber stamp, so things are as cheap and speedy as possible.

What about £350,000? Then I'd have £490,000 and he'd have £750,000 plus his future substantial pension contributions that he makes between now and retirement?

How long a marriage? Are kids joint or just yours?

Would need more info as previous poster has asked.

Agree with the last two responses - the length of your marriage will be key.

How much were you earning before leaving to be a sahm? Were you on a similar track to him before that? I.e. can you evidence that if you hadn't left you would be in a much better financial position? Is there a good reason you can't return to that field?

If the answer to the above is yes to both, then I don't see why you wouldn't get 50/50 of everything minimum if not more?

If he is on that huge salary then he can very easily replenish his pension and house value between now and retirement. You will not have the same opportunity.

Sorry, children are both of ours (but they are in their mid 20s and totally independent anyway), married for 28 years.

50:50 as a minimum in this situation however cross he gets 🤷🏻‍♀️ don’t martyr yourself for speed. Get what you’re due.

@cerialkiller I was earning about half of what he was on back then and I might be on £80,000 now if I'd kept at it, but I can't return to it at the level I was at because my knowledge is totally out of date, as are my professional qualifications. I was in regulatory compliance, so up to date knowledge and qualifications are key issues. I could start again at entry level (which I might do) but it would obv be on an entry level salary. Thank you for you reply!

long marriage, shared children, and you sacrificed career to be primary parent.

you are being far too passive. The starting point is to add all the assets, including his pension and split in half. Then ask if you should get more than half to compensate for your lower future earnings. If you walk away with less than 620,000 (total pensions split in 2) plus half the equity in the house, plus half of the bank accounts, plus half the values of the cars and any other substantial assets then you are a fool.

Wow, thanks @Ponderingwindow that's good to know. I'm being passive because it's freaking terrifying. I'm not terrified of the unknown or being alone (what a godsend that would be) I'm terrified of telling him and what his reaction and behaviour will be, particularly as I'll be dealing with him on my own. I don't have family (except an elderly mother) who can help me with him when he's being terrifying.

I should add, I have the children of course, but they both went to study abroad and stayed abroad.

Just wanted to add, a judge is not supposed to sign off on an agreement that leaves one party unfairly treated. So just agreeing to take a paltry amount won’t necessarily speed things through the courts.

you also need to be thinking about your retirement. This settlement could be the difference between you retiring at a standard age or needing to keep working.

There are enough assets here that it’s worth making sure you get your fair split. You don’t have to ask for more than half, but he will be very hard-pressed to justify giving you less than half.

I think you need to go and see a solicitor. I’d say 50/50 absolute starting point or more for you if he wants a clean break and given his higher earning power.

you may be tempted to ask for less to try and appease him but he’ll be angry no matter what so you may as well deal with his anger and get a nice house with reasonable pension!

I don't see why you wouldn't ask for 50:50 of everything as a minimum?

Long marriage, you contributed massively to his being able to earn what he did by doing all childcare & household stuff

Don't do yourself out of a comfortable retirement by some misguided notion of fairness or to try and placate his inflated sense of importance. He will kick off regardless won't he, so just go for everything you're entitled to.

If you'd be happy with 40% of the assets that's fine - but for gods sake don't start negotiations there and let him bully you out of a decent sum

Ask for 55% (he's got greater earning power) and let him massage his ego by knocking you down to a sum you're still happy with

Do the calculations of what you're going to need in the future, don't leave anything out. Include a minimum wage job to show willing or a salary you think you might achieve but don't be too optimistic.

Yes definitely 50:50 of all the net assets (house, pensions, investments and cash - less any debts). That's the legal principle. I personally wouldn't go for more - just what's fair.

Get yourself a solicitor and get them to handle all the communications with your soon to be XH.

I'm sure he will object to this as I contributed nothing financially for years

Presumably then he did 50% of housework, childcare, school runs, shopping, cooking, life admin etc etc because we all know that has zero financial contribution to the ability to sustain a successful career 🙄 (that's for him BTW). Your starting point is 50:50 of everything and you both have another 14 years until retirement age. His earning capacity is far greater than yours and so the argument is that you should be entitled to a greater share of the assets, probably more 60:40.

Have a look at this https://www.retirementlivingstandards.org.uk/ and then work out how big your pension pot needs to be to achieve this. You'll be surprised/shocked. Your annual pension should equate to a 3% draw down of the pot (I think).

Pension and house equity should be put in one pot and divided 50/50, this would likely be the starting point.

I think you're selling yourself short, you need to plan for your retirement and at your age and current earnings means you'd struggle to put enough in a pension before you retire

50/50

you have been married a long time

and you were / have been a stay at home Mum

50/50

as he has a huge pension pot whereas yours is peanuts in contrast ( sorry )

and if he is likely to object - you need to start off by requesting more, esp as he still earns very well and if he wants he still has time to throw £££ into his pension after the divorce is settled

I'm also sure he has narcissistic personality disorder so will be difficult about most things.

He probably doesn't. Very few people are actually narcissists. More likely he's a bad tempered bully. Fortunately, the law is on your side and if you get a good solicitor you can tell STBXH that you can't discuss it with him, he needs to speak to your lawyer.

All the best OP.

Thank you everyone for all your responses, you're very kind 😻. It's been very helpful and encouraging to know I should be OK financially after we split and should aim for 50:50 as a starting point.🙂

apparently some people are not ' truthful ' re their assets, so if you can gather as much info as possible that may be very useful.

Turtletunes I’m in a similar position at the moment. Same length of marriage and I was a stay at home mum for a while, then worked part time as the children grew up so we never needed childcare.

The differences are I’m dealing with lower figures and my H won’t argue anything but I too am trying to work out what would be a fair and sensible split of finances.

I spoke to a solicitor yesterday and he deemed it reasonable for me to have most of the equity from the house sale and a good proportion of his pension due to his higher earning potential, his larger pension pot and the fact that he has a business that he could potentially sell in the future (I currently own some of this so that’s another decision to make).

I think there is a form which you can find online called ‘Form E’. As I understand it, this form would be completed by both parties and is a declaration of assetts/finances which would make it hard for your H to hide anything. I think this is the first step in reaching a financial settlement.

I was reluctant to involve a solicitor at this point as we are talking but I managed to get a free initial consultation and I’m really pleased I did. It has made everything a lot clearer. If I were you, I’d seek professional advice, I’m glad I did.

Good luck, I’d be interested to hear how you get on x

thanks @OnACloud I've seen Form E in trying to get my head around the process and found the Advice Now link at the top of this Divorce forum to be really useful. Have a look at that if you haven't already. Good luck to you too!

Thanks for the thread @Turtletunes
Sadly I find myself in a similar situation..
I'm 60 this year , DH is 62 .
I have been the SAHM for 22 years , allowing him to progress in his career including 3 stints in foreign countries.

He has high earning potential too in plus 200k bracket .
My potential when I gave up work would have been high , although who knows ..
Currently I'm earning £25k in an admin job, at the bottom of the ladder so my earning potential is low ..
We are heading for divorce, although I'm currently playing the game and bidding some time to get ducks in a row .
We have a small mortgage on our house , an asset of a boat and his pension pots which is suspect could run towards that £1m figure after all the senior positions .
It is reassuring that I could walk away with more than I had thought - looking at this thread .
I was advised by a counselor to use a lawyer for the financial settlement as it's the best way to ensure you get the best outcome for yourself and not get guilted by the overbearing angry DH
My best wishes to all on this thread and let's keep updating to see how the journey progresses .