STBXH wants a payment holiday - I'm still paying for everything else!

[Bustin]

My husband and I are divorcing, he is staying with his parents, I'm in the marital home with our two kids. The house is up for sale, he is paying the mortgage until it's sold and we will then both have our own homes.

Tonight he has asked if we can take a mortgage holiday for a couple of months as he has some expenses coming up.

I'm hoping mad but want to know if I'm being unreasonable and where I stand legally. I will still be paying all bills, feeding, clothing etc the kids. I think if he's not paying the mortgage he should pay child maintenance, which is roughly half the mortgage payment, or the mortgage payments should be deducted from his half of the profit from the house sale.

Can I have your unbiased opinions, my friends and family are obviously on my side!

He should absolutely be paying child maintenance at a minimum, not sure of the legal position in terms of the mortgage though.

He sounds like a cunt, are his children not his responsibility too 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

No!

And he can start paying child maintenance.

It’s not reasonable to expect morthage AND cms. However if there is a mortgage holiday I’d say it’s reasonable to pay cns.

what are the expenses as I’d use that to guide me

Well if the child maintenance amount is half what he’s currently paying for the mortgage he does have a point. You’re paying the bills because you live there, he won’t be able to find a suitable home for him and the children if he’s still paying the mortgage.
A mortgage holiday for a few months until the house can sell and instead he pays maintenance sounds reasonable.

I mean he basically is though, the amount he pays currently is two times what maintenance would be.

So as it stands, there is one home, he's paying 100% of the mortgage and sleeping at someone else's house until it sells.

This is double any maintenance you are entitled too.

You are paying the bills for the property in which the bills are incurred.

After making no mortgage payments yourself, but receiving the equivalent of double the maintenance you are entitled to, you are furious that you aren't going to get the double payment for two months, whilst you continuing to make no payments on your own mortgage?

Okkkkk.

He should be paying CM. He should also be paying half the mortgage - but it could be argued that you owe him occupational rent which would cancel this out. He's therefore been paying double what he should.

Thanks all, good to have different view points.

Just for clarity, we split all bills and mortgage evenly before separation. When the house sells we'll get 50:50 each, so although he's currently paying the full mortgage he ultimately will get half of it back.

What I was thinking of suggesting going forward he pays child support and I pay everything. But when the house sells I get the difference between the mortgage now and the mortgage then, before the remainder is divided. So we both get 50% of when we're both paid in. How does that sound? Any other suggestions?

I don’t understand your logic.

Why aren’t you both paying half the mortgage. That keeps the equity 50/50.

You should then pay the bills (they are yours alone) and he should pay child maintenance.

That’s how it will be going on and the only difference now is you have joint equity in the property so split the interest in that.

If effect that is what we were doing. He was transferring me £600, and I was paying the mortgage with that. His child support would have been £320 and half the mortgage £300, so he was actually paying slightly less than half the mortgage plus child support.

He now wants to pay nothing for 2 months by taking a mortgage holiday, his reasoning being that the money he transfers to me covers the mortgage. Meanwhile the interest mounts up, the monthly payments will be higher afterwards and it'll be on our credit records.

Does that make more sense?

You’re ignoring the fact that his capital is tied up in a house you’re getting sole use of currently so his share should not be impacted simply because you pay for a period until it sells

The payments he is making will be making very little difference to the equity. It’s mostly interest. Would be totally unreasonable to say for example he gets 1200 less from the sale.

He ‘owes’ 320. You ‘owe him’ 300 for his half of the house you’re living in. Not totally unreasonable but not sustainable. Do you know why he is short and will it only be 2 months?
Is the house sale near completion?