Divorce. Is he being fair? Financial agreement.

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I'm currently going through a mostly amicable divorce. It wasn't my decision, but no one else is involved, and things hadn't been good for a while. We've been married for 10 years and have two children, ages 4 and 6.

We own a house with £350K in equity. My grandparents contributed £150K to help us buy it, which my STBXH has always acknowledged as my money. He also has a great relationship with my family.

My ex has a significant pension pot of around £300K, whereas I have nothing close to that. He earns approximately £60K, while I earn £80K. We also have £20K in savings.

He's proposed taking £70K (so he can buy a flat locally) and keeping his entire pension. Otherwise, he says he'll seek £175K, plus half of our savings and joint assets. He believes this is fair, citing my potential future inheritance and his lack of one as reasons why his pension should remain untouched.

We're trying to keep things amicable and avoid solicitors, but from what I've read, it seems he may have a case. However, I feel that the £150K was an early inheritance meant for me, and he shouldn't be entitled to it.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Any advice?

I don’t think there’s a lot in it
you arrived with a pre marital asset if 150k inheritance. That you want to keep

he arrive with 10 years of his pension roughly the value of 150k

does seem a bit unfair to treat these contribution differently

tbh using the examples above of who brought what and what you’re leaving with OP getting the better deal

I don't think this would be worth contesting and you may well end up worse off for doing so.

Not sure why you're seeing him as taking your 150k when a) he's only asking for 70k and b) the house has 350k equity in it.

The pensions are irrelevant to this imo, especially as he earns less than you - it balances that out more.

If you didn't do a deed of trust to protect your deposit then legally he can go for half of it

He can go for it anyway as marriage supersedes a deed of trust in most cases.

He’s being very fair. If he were posting (as a woman) he’d be told to not be so generous.

you want to keep your 150k but go after half his pension, a chunk of which was earned pre marriage.

You total marital assets according to the law and assuming your pension is 40K are: 350K equity, 300K is pension, 40K your pension, 20K savings = £710K Split 50/50 that leaves £355K for each of you. He wants £370K. So if you wanted to you could claim that he's getting £15K more.

You also have to remember that a judge will have to sign it off and if they think that the amount is too far from being fair (ie if you decided not to count your £150K) they might not agree to it.

Him saying you are not counting your £150K is completely dishonest though, it's clear that he has taken that into consideration.

Pensions are definitely part of a divorce settlement, I don't know why you think they aren't.

I don’t think he particularly has taken the 150k into consideration in terms of making a stake on it. He’s saying if the 150k is yours then my pension is mine, which imo is fair because you can’t claim one is family money if the other isn’t.
Putting out the 150k, each retaining their own pension (with their age, income and FT work status seems fair) there is 200k left in equity plus £20k in savings - of which is he requesting 70k. It still puts OP in the better position, particularly given she’s the higher earner.

PP is right, no way would the DH be given the advice to only ask for 70 if he was the wife!

Settle at that before he changes his mind. You could both easily rinse through tens of thousands in solicitors fees, if you can agree at that then I absolutely would.

I think this sounds fair and I would be inclined to agree to it. More equity rather than pension funds is much more useful to you now. You have a good salary so can afford to increase your pension contributions later.

My view is it's fair and you risk losing a lot in legal fees (both his and yours) if you end up in proceedings so, even if you might get a somewhat increased percentage overall, you'd probably get a lower sum due to the fees.

I don't think it's an awful split but if u split everything down the middle he's getting a better deal than you. Get this down on paper and show him, keep it simple.

This is joint assets:
Pensions £330k
Savings £20k
Equity £350k

That's £700k. So £350k would be your 50/50 so technically he is asking for £20k more.

This does also include the £150k inheritance you got so it isn't really in your favour. If you take off the inheritance it's £275k each. He cld also argue let's say £100k or more from pension was before marriage. So split would be more £325k.

If you can manage to get him to walk away with his pension intact and give him nothing I'd take that!

But then he is effectively counting the £150K. He's offsetting that against his pension for some reason. You can't just pick and choose what is marital assets and what isn't. If you want to avoid a judge rejecting the financial order you need to make it fair and count all marital assets. The outcome the ex is asking for isn't wildly unfair given that OP makes a bit more money, but they are over complicating the case by excluding gifted money and pensions. If she wants to agree to getting slightly less than 50% she needs to write a statement explaining why she is happy to do that, but it needs to make sense. It would be much more straight forward to just split all assets down the middle, assuming there is no other debt than mortgage.

Just trying to understand. So of the £350k equity, if he accepts deducting £150k from inheritance, that leaves £100k each. Is he offering to forgo £30k of that in exchange for you forgoing a claim on his pension pot? If you put that £30k that he is letting you have in a pension plan and started planning for yourself (ie putting more in your own pension) between now and retirement is that worth a clean break, which is what this would be?

Tbh, it sounds like a good deal, given you earn more than he does and he could probably claim 50% of the £350k (ie £175k, so an additional 105k) if you went through solicitors/courts?

You could try and get him to agree to a slightly more favourable settlement because, split down the middle, he's getting 15-20k more on the basis of his proposal.

But if he resists, I really wouldn't fight it. You need to remember that by staying in the house you have no stamp duty, no legal fees and moving expenses of buying a new house. Your ex will have all those costs and they'll be more than 15-20k.

Honestly I would take this and wrap up the financials quickly. I think his offer is very reasonable. Indeed - how is he going to house himself )and have children staying?) with only 70k…??
Mine dragged out a -because he took the same view as you about what should be ‘his’ and made it confrontational and cost each of us 100k in legal fees - to come out with effectively what we were both entitled to. Part of his pension is likely to be considered pre/marital.

The entire pension pot will be considered, not just what was earned during marriage. It's only in short marriages that some or all of it can be left out. In a long marriage, which this is, all of the pension is counted.

I suppose if you are saying the £150k is yours then he is saying the £300k pension in his. So by that logic you’d have £280k and he’d have £370k (not sure where the joint savings are going) I’d put this to him and say that you need to meet in the middle. However if he needs this to get a deposit on another house and this will house your children then I’d be inclined to agree for the benefit of your children. Look at it as your children’s inheritance if that makes you feel better.

Hey. A lot to read. Sometimes you can't see wood for trees in a divorce. But this thread has given me good for thought about what is fair. Ultimately we coparent well at the moment and get on. I maybe have listened to friends and family a bit too much. We will have a talk as, reading some dispassionate views has given me some clarity.

By the way, think about agreeing now how you will both contribute to supporting the DC if they go to university. IME solicitors don’t think about this and it’s not covered by CMS. If you think he might get difficult about it later then worth agreeing now.

Lots of good advice and as others have said definitely consider divorce solicitors fees, estate agents fees, stamp duty and upheaval etc.

Another thing to consider is if you can both keep it civil and agree without arguing now it will help you both carry this attitude through the next '18' years of coparenting. There is so much added value in this. If you can be amicable now then this can be very beneficial for the future when circumstances may change and you may need each other's help financially. Even just an amicable financial attitude together keeps it more plain sailing. It's a long time left to coparent!

Take it. Sounds as though that would be the best solution for what you all need. Assuming you want him to do 50/50 and house the children (or at least do some overnights). He needs security too!

I’m surprised no one has asked more about the pensions. Are they DB or not? My ex’s pension pot was a third bigger than mine but in pensions a £ doesn’t equal a £ because his was money-purchase and mine is cast iron final salary.

We got pensions statements done for the purposes of divorce and it dragged things out and was expensive but I have no doubt I’d have been totally shafted if I hadn’t insisted on this.

Sorry, by statements I mean a full actuarial report comparing one pension with the other. It was a couple of grand.