What’s fair in settlement?

[Divorce4u]

I was hoping for some independent views as I only have friends and family to bounce thinks off

married 25 years. Started marriage in similar positions but I went part time for kids. He is a high earner. Travels a lot. He must have earnt at least 90% of earned income over the marriage.

financial position
house 1 - v good location and value will hold well. Had to move for family reasons but planned to return so rent it out. Rent covers the smallish mortgage. We did well on the property ladder luckily.
house 2 - less good location and a harder property to sell. Worth just under half of other house.

enough savings to pay off mortgages - I don’t have visibility of how much there is

isa - same each

pensions - similar - his is a bit more

inheritance - my parents have helped us a little towards renovation works. I should have some sort of inheritance (hopefully not for a very long time!) but DH will have nothing

I will struggle to go full time and earn more tbh.

so DH proposal is that I get house 2 mortgage free and keep the ISA and my pension. Instead of maintenance he will pay school fees/costs. I can probably afford the running costs of house 2 but will need to tighten belt and stop paying into pension

so should i push for 50/50 or is he being generous? I worry he won’t support the kids past school so uni etc will fall to me.

what does he earn as that’s key

a court will expect you to maximise earnings - ( by improving your income through ft work etc) unless your children have complex sen requirements. Do you claim pip /do they have ehcp etc?

he’s not likely to be required to lose more than half assets and pay cms and school fees unless he’s a very high earner especially if you’re only pt.

He can’t pay fees in lieu of cms. You may not be able to have someone to come in and do chores ..:

Yeah it’s not about the chores. I can do that myself. It’s about having an adult in the house and enabling me to go into the office. It’s an odd situation but I earn well for my part time hours in current job but will not get much of an uplift working full time elsewhere. If I could go back full time in current job that would be perfect. Or maybe stay in current job and find a job in unrelated field for other days. I need to work out what I can do.

i would prefer to get maintenance (I understand the amount he earns is above the upper threshold) and dip into savings for my half of the fees. I know it’s taking from one pocket to put in the other but it would enable clarity.

There is no reason why you can't receive CMS level maintenance, only take 50% of marital asset value and him pay the school fees.

Assuming he is a very high earner that wouldn't be unusual?

How committed is he about the DC staying in private school? You could say he pays fees and you pay all the additional school costs or negotiate that it's ALL shared and pay according to earnings ratio or you pay 25%?

I think what is clear from this thread is that I need to see a solicitor and I need to get clarity on his financial position!!

i made a comment about some dream dd has and he said something about me having to find a rich second husband to pay for it. Made me realise I need to protect the kids financially. (Not so I can pay for dds dream btw as that was clearly a joke!)

he is happy with the school as it is giving the support the kids need and they are in key years

How are your pensions a similar amount if he's earned 90% of family income? Has he topped up yours since you went part time?

Exactly this just isn't about your financial future but theirs too.

It sounds like they may need to live with a parent due to their needs well into adulthood, and that will be living with you no doubt!

If they go to uni will be contribute towards that? He won't be legally obliged to.

If you are the primary carer for the children you will likely get 55-65% of all the financial assets if it was to go to court. This includes value of property, savings, pensions, investments, and any other expensive items worth more than £500 each, including cars, jewellery, collections, art work etc.

If he is a high earner, eg more than £100k a year, then you can also apply for global maintenance. And don't forget child maintenance!

So NO his offer is not fair it all!

He’s been self employed for a large chunk and I have a good company pension scheme so that’s why we’ve ended up similar enough

I hope they won’t have to live with me well I to adulthood!! I’m trying to give them the extra support now so that by the time they leave school they are independent. They just need a bit more

Honestly I would be more than ok with 50/50 and don’t want to go for more - but perhaps he needs to speak to a solicitor so he too can understand!!

he’s never been tight with money and I don’t think he would get nasty tbh

Oh he has a limited company? Guess what? That's also a marital asset and you're entitled to at least half of that too!

No he doesn’t. He's an employee now

Ahhh, fair! At least getting child maintenance will be easier then!

i have no doubt he will stick to an agreement. He might resent it but he won’t try and subvert it.

I'm trying really hard to look past our resentments towards each other and do this as amicably as possible but just need him to understand it’s not going to be all his own way

I would file form A for financial proceedings and get to full disclosure stage so you know what he has then offer a 50/50 split consent order - perhaps with global maintenance for a short period of time if his earnings are very high.

At the second hearing (FDA) the judge will indicate what they are likely to order if you don't come to an agreement. But definitely seek legal advice!

Sorry @Divorce4u but to be blunt, if he's already trying to hide assets there's no way he's going to willingly pay child maintenance at the correct rate.

If he earns more than £150k a year you'll also need to make an application under schedule one of the children act to get the rest of it.

He’s not trying to hide assets - he’s just being very quiet about it. I’ve told him I’m not willing to discuss a settlement until we have every asset listed out. so call is on his court but I will start looking for a decent solicitor.

I really don’t think he’s going to be difficult but I would like as clean a break as possible and build my own life without relying on him going forward (kids expenses being the exception)

I think if you are only going for 50/50 then you should ask for him to pay for all schooling costs going forward including uni if relevent. Her him to put it in an educational trust if you can in case his circumstances change. You shouldn't be paying for that out of your half. That money needs to be for you to secure your future and retirement, don't forget that.

As pp have said you are likely entitled to considerable more, spousal maintenance, 60-65% of assets, that includes (what sounds like) big chunk of savings, property, pensions. If you are happy with less then you can point out to him perfectly correctly that you are more then likely entitled to more then the 50% you are asking for and you can be reasonable as long as he is reasonable. Then it's in his interest to keep you happy.

But yes get all the information, get legal advice. You might be surprised at what he hasn't disclosed. I also think it's a mistake to assume that he will act in good faith. He isn't being kind or fair to you, it's best not take his word or his past character as an indication of how will he act in the future especially if he believes you are defying him by not agreeing to his ridiculous terms. So many stories on here about how exes had a complete personality change during devorce.

He's already hiding assets though, because you do not know what he has. He's already proven that he's not going to be honest, because if he intended to be, he would have disclosed everything already instead of trying to mug you off with a very low offer.

Yes - part of the reason for the divorce is that we’re not a team anymore. I do think he will do what he thinks is best by the kids but we may not agree on what that is.

I'm not worried about my financial future tbh. Even if I agreed to his offer I would have enough. It’s really just the kids that I want to protect financially.

@RMNofTikTok having the children more does not in many cases result in more than 50:50. It completely depends on the assets available and if needs can be met with 50%. If they can that is often the outcome so telling op she’ll get 60 or 70% is simply not based on any facts.

we don’t know how much op ex earns but say 150K which is about cns threshold, Sounds a lot but if he’s paying say 1.5k in cms and then same or more for school fees he’s left with not so much each month and it wouldn’t be reasonable to lose more than 50% and still pay those. If he’s on 500k, that’s different,

op hasn’t stated what he earns
nor has she stated what needs her children have and how complex.
nor does she need to here but those are key points and without them it’s impossible to say.

op should get some legal advice but it’s wrong to automatically assume ex is trying to hide assets or shaft op, and it’s perfectly possibly to sit and discuss and try to reach agreement without solicitors often antagonising and inflaming the situation, and still getting a fair outcome.

It’s also reasonable that both parties will try to get their best outcome, op will just as much as ex, and also realise there’ll be compromise negotiation along the way .

That's generally only in housing needs cases. Which this clearly is not.

No it’s not

@Divorce4u A lot of people posting here get unduly optimistic about what a divorce settlement will look like. They tell you how they would like things to be rather than how they are. They also tend to ignore that each divorce is highly dependent on the unique facts of your case. There are however some general approaches that tend to be more predictable than others:

If you can work full time but it is not possible in your current job for example, then you will be expected to seek a new job because both parties are expected to maximise their earning capacity.

Most divorces are needs based and this can affect the asset split. If there are more assets than needs, then once needs are met the court will consider sharing of the marital assets. Non-marital assets then go to the person who brought them into the marriage (or acquired them after separation).

It is possible he could be ordered to pay school fees on top of maintenance. Equally, he might not be.

I couldn't tell you any more on the above based on the facts you've provided. Anyone who claims otherwise here is misleading you.

The only thing I would say is that you need to be aware that all you’re actually entitled to from him for the kids is CMS, once that stops, you’re on your own and he doesn’t have to pay for anything else above that.

Thanks. That’s clear. I suppose my original question was whether his offer is fair and it clearly isn’t

on the working full time - the issue I have is that I will struggle to get a full time job that pays much more than my current part time job (I have been looking) and any extra pay will be more than wiped out by any child care I would need to arrange. Unfortunately he intends to move out and not have kids during week so I will need to buy that help in. At the moment I have the lady 2 days a week and when he is home I go into the office as much as I can. Ideally I would be able to increase my current job to full time but given everything going on in the economy atm it’s unlikely.

I just feel like I’m going to be doing even more than I currently am with the kids and I won’t have any sort of life until they are out of school. To then add working full time on top is going to make that even harder for very little financial benefit.