Which parties get their current standard of living maintained?

[sirensong]

Two people I'm close to are unfortunately starting mediation to divide assets. Each obtaining legal advice but interested in views based on experiences/ precedent.

The details:

• Short one year marriage, prior co-habitation for around two years

• One baby

Person A: earns around 260k part time but 400k if they worked full time

Brought an expensive car, a large pension and some hefty investments into the marriage. Bought a second expensive car during the marriage for the other to use.

Paid c.80% of the house deposit (both on the title)

More likely to prefer weekends/ overnights in terms of custody.

Person B: earns around 190k working full time

Uses one of the cars the other bought

Paid 20% of the house deposit but a year of 100% mortgage payments towards levelling things. There's probably around 500k property equity.

Solid pension but not as high as person A. No investments.

A year of reduced earnings as a result of extended parental leave. Majority of the parenting to date.

Primary caregiver - will be largely responsible for childcare going forward. Maybe 80/20. May take a hit on career progression.

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Person A thinks assets should be divided to be similar to what was brought into the marriage/ proportional share of house equity contributed. With an equal share of ongoing child support costs. This would result in person B being unable to maintain the mortgage on the current family home but able to afford somewhere smaller.

Person B thinks the matrimonial pot should be divided according to need. That because of majority custody and the requirement to preserve the same standard of living for the child, that calculations should be as though person A was working full time and result in a 50/50 - 70/30 split of assets and ongoing mortgage cost contributions.

I assume a child is the overriding factor even in a short marriage but are they the priority in terms of who should be expected to have their living standards maintained?

Should person A be left able to afford a similar property to the family home (vs say a two bed flat) even though they won't have custody/ primary childcare responsibilities?

Should the baby be entitled to the same value primary house as at present, or is the bar for reasonable accommodation set lower? (Eg. the family home could be sold and lower value properties purchased by each party)

Top lawyers will be fighting this one out - it may not be a standard high street settlement.

A child is an over-riding factor.

Normally in a short marriage person a would be correct however a child will over-ride the "put things back roughly the way they were" aspect,

I wouldn't like to comment on what a court will do. God knows.

Person a
short marriage set back to position pre marriage plus some adj for child

if these really are the salaries then neither party is going to be disadvantaged and for a short 3 year relationship neither has sacrificed anything or contributed to other parties earnings or built up joint assets

@millymollymoomoo thanks, is this your experience or awareness of a similar situation? Not necessarily with similar amounts but the underlying principle. There is no first consideration that the child should maintain the same standard of living with the parent they are resident with? A house of a similar standard etc.

Are any of the deposits protected? If not and house owned 50/50 then I don't see why there would be any deviation from 50/50 total assets split, making an exception for property/pension accumulated before marriage for both parties. I think person As income is over the threshold for CMS? So might be worth having a court ordered agreement for child support (or whatever is fine now) so person a pays proportionally for their child.

There is no requirement to maintain the same standard of living.

It is generally accepted in divorce that this is not possible.

Yes the CSM cap is 156k so they will need to negotiate a top up potentially. Yes person b won't need it to survive but that doesn't mean that that person a should contribute properly to looking after his child. The child must be very young? So childcare costs will be very high for a number of years and person b will be taking on more of the burden of rearing and being held up in career because lack of flexibility, illness, not being able to work away or work late etc.

Given the very high salaries of both, I suspect the solicitors are going to be the ones who maintain their standard of living, not A or B...

As is so often the case!

😂 but also 😥

Whole thing very unfortunate.

I understand person B's lawyer (central London firm) is claiming the requirement should be there + compensation for the (near) year of parental leave. Is this somehow successfully argued by attack dog specialists or a ruse to keep the fees coming in? If both parties can ditch the lawyers that would obviously be better all round.

They will just be put back to the position they were in before they married. Neither has been disadvantaged by the marriage or the child. Both will be expected to maintain the child’s standard of living via child support or care.

I would say a judge would be pissed off by someone on 190k pa with 100k equity claiming they can’t afford a decent property.

Why is person B the primary care giver when they work full time, whereas person A works part time?

In a short marriage I think it's a long shot to expect 50/50. Considering the salaries of both parties, both will be able to go on and buy their own properties if they so wish.

A child is always a primary consideration however there is no right to maintain the exact same standard i.e the same home. It's generally accepted that children are resilient enough to move homes without it being a huge traumatic event.

If person A can earn £260k working part-time then surely the sensible thing is for them to do the majority of childcare, surely that's why they're working part time, to maximise time with their child, or is there another reason?

"Why is person B the primary care giver when they work full time, whereas person A works part time?"

@narns I think this lifestyle choice disparity may be a contibuting factor to the divorce.

Leisure time! As above, reading between the lines I understand a significant issue to have been the expectation they did almost no childcare.

Neither person will suffer detriment to a decent standard of living by not having financial support from the other.

Short relationship and very short marriage.

The expectation would usually be therefore to "reset" them to their relative positions before the marriage in terms of the division of assets as both are capable of providing for themselves.

Obviously the non-resident parent should provide maintenance also towards the costs of raising the child to maintain their standard of living and avoid disruption to them. At these levels of earnings maintenance is determined by the court if the parties cannot agree, not through CMS.

But no, being married to someone for a year doesn't automatically get you half of their assets, thankfully!

I am sure, given what you've said, that all of them will manage perfectly fine.

Lawyers can argue whatever they want.

It's whether a judge accepts it and rules.

In very high net worth cases (not obvious that this is unless person A or person B has literally millions in stocks or assets) then an argument can be made that the child should have a standard of living in accordance with the parent's financial assets.

This does not appear to be that sort of case.

@Octavia64 Not that sort of case - at least I don't think it's millions plural - though will be the wealth level for person A down the line as a result of future inheritance. That will have no impact on the settlement now though.

I think if top lawyers are involved there isn’t much point asking people on mumsnet.

the truth is, it all comes down to the judge on the day.

No one gets to maintain the same standard of living- the pot of money that provided for one household now has to provide two households.

How would it be mathematically possible for either to maintain the same lifestyle when the joint income now needs to maintain two homes instead of one?

I think if one party was significantly the higher earner, provision would be made so that the primary carer has "suitable" accomodation, but in this case they shouldn't need help to do that, and as it was a short marriage, agree things will pretty much be put back to how they were before.

@Rubixcoobe I think a critical issue is what is considered to be part of the matrimonial pot - just house and cars? Or also pensions, investments etc. In short marriages I assume these aren't usually factored in but I guess that will be the battleground.

For some people the standard of living rises, when the party who had been an enormous drain on resources is separate and can no longer deplete them. 😊 Expensive to get to that point, though. Painful mistakes indeed.

After such a short union it is madness and greed to go to war

Both if they had a modicum of sense should leave with what they put in

Court can and will cost thousands of pounds and likely the result will be that no one walks away with anything significant as no one has been in the marriage long enough to even deserve to walk away with something they did not contribute!

Sounds to me like they should get themselves into counselling and person A, who I am assuming is male as they didn't take the maternity leave and think childcare is beneath them, should get a bloody great kick up the arse to start being an adult. Deciding to divorce when they have such a young child, with the pressure that puts on a couple, seems like a hasty decision.