Settlement offer from high earning stbx

[Twinklestar80]

I’m a stay at home parent with a 5yr old and 19month old. We are in the process of divorcing and my wife is a high earner with £200k per year. My income when working full time was £35k. She has in excess of £2million inheritance assets in the US (where she’s from) and we have £350k equity in our £1.1m house and circa £50k savings.

We’re in mediation at the moment and I’ve asked for £700k to house myself and the children as I will have them 5 days per week (we live in London and average price of semi in 2024 was £670k.) I have paid for a mortgage capacity report and there is only one lender willing to consider me but even then, the monthly payments are far to high and I wouldn’t be able to cover them along with all the other bills.

My soon to be ex has offered £450k and expects me to top up to £600k (she thinks that’s a reasonable house price in the area) with a mortgage. She wants to stay in the £1.1m family home as she doesn’t think she should have to ‘downgrade’ to a £600k house. I have no income and haven’t worked for five years. I’m hoping to retrain in the next couple of years as a teacher and take a marketing job in the meantime but even then, only one lender is willing to give me a mortgage and the payments are still too high.

I’ve got a solicitor who is offering adhoc advice but I’m dreading our next mediation session as my wife just doesn’t believe my lack of mortgage capacity and expects me to live on universal credit. Her attitude is that because I called time on the relationship, I should have to live with the consequences. That would be fine, if we didn’t have two young children. We’re also still living together as she refuses to move out and I can’t afford it . I am feeling totally stuck and pressured into this offer.

Well, it seems you were not a high earner or in a high earning career path prior to becoming a parenting and have only been out the workplace for 5 years. You are set to walk away with assets to a level far out reaching what you could have amassed with other so you’re not disadvantaged really.

with choices comes consequences and you can’t expect to live the same lifestyle separated as you were as a couple and you’ll need to pay your way going forward. Personally I think it wrong to expect to share in her inheritance but the law says otherwise in many cases.

that said there are enough assets to go round ( assuming the inheritance in the USA is deemed in the pot - is it?) and as a high earner she’s screwed and you’ll get your share no doubt.

what does your solicitor say ?

how long have you been married ?

I think you need a better solicitor.

Im not sure about the law but are you entitled to half of the assets is USA? If so I would think £700k to you is fair.

Take advice from your solicitor. If you are housing the children perhaps a larger sum should be forthcoming. Also child maintenance from the high earner which should be substantial.

If the US inheritance isn’t counted in the split, then your half of the assets is £200k. So £450k sounds very fair to me.
Couldn’t you return to work full time and get a mortgage? Share the childcare costs with your ex.
And why do you need a semi? You could buy a terraced property for instance… if your children are the same gender you could get a 2 bed house.
Sounds like your wife can afford to run your current property and you can’t, so why would she move out?
You’ve chosen to end your marriage and now it sounds like you expect her to keep you in the manner to which you’re accustomed, which is unrealistic (I’d say this too if the genders were reversed)

How long have you been married?

Are you a woman or a man?

Are either of you the biological parents/who carried them?

Obviously you don't have to answer but my response would be different depending on these answers.

I’ve never heard of a settlement where one party gets 100% of assets with another £300k on top!

I would have thought 70/30 in your favour with high cm.

What about ex’s pension, has that and yours been taken into account.

I don’t think genders are relevant

this us a case where op never had high earnings, is fortunate enough to have married a high earner high wealth individual, has benefitted from that and now seems to thinks she’s owed a mortgage free house and lifestyle. The law will see she gets a high share and of course a high cms amount so she’ll do very well out if it

the key thing is whether the USA assets are in the pot if not, they shouldn’t be but I edict they are in which case op ex is screwed

Gender isn't relevant, but their sex is.

I agree she shouldn’t have to down grade if she’s earning that much. A teacher salary in a few years after training is low too so maybe best lower your expectations a bit.

As far as I understand it, the US assets aren’t automatically disqualified just because they are in a foreign country, but whether or not they’ll be included requires specialist legal advice.

One of your children is in school and the other will qualify for 30 hours of childcare if you’re both working. Any additional childcare costs should be split between you to enable you both to work.

If you get a job, and have £400,000 cash, why is there only one lender that would lend to you?

It sounds like you have a shortish marriage - under 10 years? And it is unclear what the law says on inheritance - probably depends on when it was received, and if it was in any way intermingled in the assets.

Irrespective of sex/genders - you are coming out as unrealistic in your expectations, and a bit grabby. You only had a short career break. And you never had a high earning capacity. And it’s a short marriage.

None of this gives you the right to upgrade your lifestyle in divorce.

£450K is a good offer in these circumstances. And you don’t need to live in a house - plenty of people live in flats. (I am raising my kids in a flat…)
Separately - i think you may have a claim on term-limited spousal to get you through retraining, and until kids are in secondary. Have you discussed it with a solicitor?

On the point - ‘she wouldn't move out’. Very unreasonable of you to expect that. And mortally indefensible - you called it a day and she needs to move out??? (Unless there is abuse you didn't mention). Makes no financial sense either.

So - get realistic and get through the process without vilifying your ex.

How are the second and third of these points relevant?

700k is about a third of joint assets assuming the money in America is included so actually sounds very low.

As pp have said, you haven't mentioned pensions, I imagine hers could be substantial.

Talli up exactly what the marital pot is, both your pensions, find out if the American money can be included then based you claim on that. Minimum should really be 50/50.

I'm shocked by the responses on here telling you to accept so little. Yes you didn't necessarily sacrifice a high paying career to become a stay at home parent, but you will certainly have facilitated your ex's career by being main child care.

It somewhat makes a difference if you are female and birthed the children rather then being their father (as that would have been a significant sacrifice on her part to) but parity is still needed.

On her high salary, spousal could be considered to although I would only go for this long enough to retrain if at all.

So you can borrow the difference but you are worried about the monthly payment?

You'll get a high sum of child maintenance. In a couple of years time, you'll be able to get back to work FT. It sounds like together, you'll have enough of an income, whilst claiming help for childcare to afford a mortgage of £150k.

You might need to be realistic. What about pension?

You will be expected to get back into work though. You do realise that don't you?

@Cerialkiller youre making a lot of assumptions re her contribution to ex ability to earn that often are simply not correct. Perhaps they are but it’s not a given and we don’t know. Op herself was not a high earner pre children either

op is entitied to a fair share which can be less than 50%. On what basis are you determining that op is entitled to a minimum of 50%. She may well not be. We don’t know.

@heroinechic op will also be in receipt of cms of thousands a month. So should definitely be able to get a mortgage, she just feels entitled to not have one

@Twinklestar80 You will be able to pay for mortgage if you take your CMS claim into account. You don't "need" a house though, there are many flats that are close to parks and playgrounds that could suit your needs for less cost than a house.

He’s not expecting the same. He wants to move from a £1.1 million house to a £700k house. The children need a similar standard home. He’s got them 5/7 days.

@Twinklestar80have the mortgage lenders taken into account the maintenance you’ll get ?
if you’ve got the children 5 / 7 days.

Or she

@CuriousGeorge80 because there is no benefit on giving advice when making assumptions.

Could be that the op is female, birthed the children and wasn't married at this point/hasn't adopted them. Therefore the advice would be different. Could be the other way round, and ex partner birthed them and OP isn't on birth certificate.
Op could be a man, in which case baby being 19m could have a bearing on custody.

You've basically sacrificed your career so she can earn more and you'll continue to facilitate her high earnings by becoming the resident oarent. So, in this case I think you should get more and what you're asking for isn't unreasonable.

If the inheritance was received pre marriage; it’s been held separately and you’ve been married less than 10 years you’ll be hard pushed to have it considered as a marital asset and thus your current marital assets are £400k, making an offer of £450k generous.

you could try pushing to have the assets incorporated into the pot but I don’t fancy your chances and if you lose you’ll have severely impacted the UK pot.

although £200k might seem like a high salary it’s unlikely to generate spousal maintenance so unfortunately you’re going to have to cut your cloth.

I don't think the inheritance should be counted in marital pot as shared assets for a short marriage.
You'll need to go back to work full time and use child care now that you are splitting up.
Why not move to an apartment, you can get a balcony, Gym, possibly a pool etc and it'll be a cheaper option.

Anyone who suggested a stay at home mother with a high earning husband get less then 50% of marital assets would be rightly crucified.

Yes I'm making an assumption that when op refers to themselves as a sahp they mean exactly that. There's no nanny, chef and housekeeper keeping things afloat while op goes to lunch after daily shopping sprees and trips to the spa. By definition a sahp is doing the bulk of childcare, school pick ups admin among and other things that need actual physical presence that could effect a high flying career. Presumably this was a choice that op and their wife made together as being best for the family.

There's an argument about pre marriage assets and what would count as being in the pot I agree but a very very large proportion of the spouses wealth is this inheritance and a solicitor could convincingly argue that the spouse is fine, high mortgage capacity, high wealth and why should op be left with relatively little especially when they will be primary caregiver and kids will be living in vastly different conditions between parents.

It's ridiculous that the richer parent gets to live in the million £ house while expecting the poorer parent to live in a grotty 2 bed flat. What exactly the point of getting married if this is the case!?

I think op needs to go to court, get full financial disclosure and the judge decide what is a fair and legal distribution of wealth.