Good chance of a MESHER ORDER????

[ZAK3]

Hi as the title says really! So I know most people say Mesher orders are very rare these days but.......

Im still living in the family home with our kids , split a few years ago financial order Needs to be done ( long story why it hasn't already) it's shared ownership so get help with rent element & mortgage pretty low so can afford to stay here

We are already overcrowded so downsizing is out of the question & I wouldn't even be able to afford a like for like to private rent so that seems utterly pointless

Hes self employed & massively reduced his earnings ( to avoid paying me much Child maintenance I assume) so as per CMS he earns £15k a year as full time , he decided to go wild taking out loans etc when we split which he couldn't afford so he now has a IVA which will last the full 6 years as I believe it to be around 60k ish in debts 😱 , in my opinion he cannot house the children for the foreseeable & surely the main factor taken into consideration is the children's housing needs met ? He's threatened many a time he'll force a sale

How old are your children?

Are you working full time and maximising your income already?

Both parties should be adequately housed, so I wouldn’t think a Mesher order would be granted.

How much do you earn? Regarding housing, both parties should be housed adequately enough for the children to stay with them.

Mesher order on these grounds only is exceptionally unlikely.

You would both be expected to maximise income, sell the house and use any equity share to rent. Mesher will prevent him from moving on (even if his credit file is screwed and his earnings are 'low') and you have given no useful reason why you should stay in the home and deny him his share.

Do you work?
Do you work full time? If not, why not? And 'school hours' isn't a good enough reason, use childcare
How old are the kids?
How long was the marriage?
Any reason why you can't work full time AND why the kids NEED to stay in your current home eg disabilities etc
Courts much much prefer a clean break. It would be vanishingly unlikely for a mesher order even if there were cast iron reasons for one.

Currently it's his house too, he could certainly force a sale. Or he could move back in and refuse to move out or sell until the kids are 18. It sounds messy already op, cut your losses.

Sorry.

No one can say because we don’t know

your income
whether you’ll be approved to take on the mortgage alone
how much equity there is
how many children and what ages
what share and value would be deferred to ex
will the house need to be sold to clear debts

meshers are sometimes granted but they generally are when either it’s short term ( eg a few years while migrating gcse ms etc) or the absolute only way kids can be housed. Courts don’t do much care about owning vs renting but they will try to get clean break at the earliest possible time and don’t like one party being disadvantaged for a long time ( eg his share of money )

do many factors to which you haven’t provided information

Kids are 14,12& 7

I work part time & shift work , I cannot increase my hours he refused to follow cao order so I'm already winging it as he does nothing

people keep saying rent .... how exactly I'm in a two bed flat with 3 kids , a similar property near me is up for £1500 rent per month that is totally unachievable for me , yes I could probably rent for a year with equity and THEN what ? I think people say so much "just rent" it's really not that easy for so many reasons , my friend recently split with EX H and had to put 24 grand down upfront for a years rent

7 yrs left on the mortgage if we sold right now would probably get about 25k each

he cannot house the children even if he got his equity , he claims to live with family but spends most of time at his gfs house with her kids & mine when with him

I’m not sure what you are asking people. We don’t know how much a rental is in your area or what area you are talking about. We don’t know what your income is or what it could be if you rented and received benefits. That is all pertinent to whether you need a mesher order to house your children.

Your ex isn’t going to present his case in the way you are doing it. He will potentially say that with £25k he can find a suitable property to live in with his children. And he will potentially present options for you to live in to within your budget. I say potentially because I don’t know what the housing market is like where you live.

Fundamentally your case hinges on their being no property available to rent in your price range. Which will need to take account of your eligibility for benefits and the fact you could have equity to use to house your children. Ultimately whilst it is economically not a good idea to live off capital if it is what you need to do then you need to do it. And that might be how a court sees it.

NB he also has creditors and they could become interested in his assets.

Maybe a solicitor would be able to give advice that you will listen to when in receipt of all the proper information from you about your case.

All I can say is that mesher orders are insanely rare and there are minimal reasons you have given which would promote your case.

You COULD work full time though this could be tricky with shifts (but how do you manage at the moment with your shifts?). You COULD rent (I believe landlords can't ask for such huge sums up front anymore, £24k is insane). You COULD be eligible for additional benefits once single and renting that you aren't when married and paying a mortgage, including support with rent and childcare.

I went into rented for 4 years after my divorce (while my ex refused to progress the divorce or engage with a house sale). I scraped for a deposit which was 6 months up front - and my kids shared rooms. By the time that the judge forced the sale the kids were older, I was working full time. You could try and delay a sale but I suspect that will cost you more than the £££s of pounds in legal fees in emotional upset.

OP, I can see you’ve asked variations on this post repeatedly over the years and are given the same information each time.

You could work full time and at your children’s ages, you’ll be pretty much expected to. The fact he does not have a home helps his case, not yours. He needs equity.

The point I'm trying to make is he Cannot House the children whichever way you look at it, any equity he gets would go straight into the IVA & even then it's not enough to clear it & it still will show on his credit file until 2029 , we are in the south rent is very expensive I've done my research , yes I get benefits but housing element would NOT cover cost of private rent & there are so many things , shortage of properties in my area, need for guarantor , choice of people to rent to ( single mum of 3 on UC I imagine low down the list )

I manage to work with the help of friends & family as their dad can't be arsed to look after his own children so he can work full time earning thousands but claiming to earn less than £300 a week, I'm not about to give up a secure job when I'm the one having to make sure all the bills are paid on time

Hes been threatening to go bankrupt later on this year, I'm sure a judge would think that would enable him to house his children better 😬

I've got email saying eventually he's going to move in with his gf (HA) and either make her place bigger ( wouldn't even get permission for that ) or rent which again he will have zero chance of as he wont physically get any equity with the IVA active

If you’re married and divorcing Do his debts count as marital ones?

Are you on the Housing Register - if not do it now

It does seem madness to make children homeless for £25k but perhaps the solution is for you to earn more so you can buy out his share? If you extend the mortgage can you borrow £25k and transfer the property to you. That’s what I’ve had to do take out a really huge and long mortgage until I’m 70 to make the monthly payments manageable (but in reality I will downsize when dc leave and pay mortgage off long before then).

We are divorced but financial order not been done, I've had some legal advice regarding this & it's a bit of a grey area but he took loans/cc out totalling 60/70 k after we split up & basically pissed it up the wall with nothing to show for it so solicitor said he would have a hard time trying to pool them as marital debt , he's always been terrible with money

Not as yet, I did speak to housing department at my local council and it's pretty much that if I did have to sell I would rent til equity money ran out & then pretty much be homeless so then I'd be a higher priority but 3 beds are scarce round my area & she said for example she had two families highest priority already waiting 2 years for a 3 bed! But yes might aswell put myself on it anyways

You’ve got to be in it to win it as they say!

Wouldn't the IVA take any money he received from his share from forcing the sale of the house? My ex got a small inheritance and they took their money back out of that to clear her balance.

I am in a similar position, only that my ex wife has the IVA and I am renting a flat. We have four years left before the IVA is off her file and she can attempt to buy me out - Barclays have told us they wont entertain the idea until it is off her credit file. I put a post on here a few weeks ago explaining my situation and everyone told me I was being used by letting her get away with staying in the house while i rent...… well I finally spoke to a solicitor this week and she told me that they would not force her to sell the house due to us having a chile (9yo)

Hope you get sorted!

"people keep saying rent .... how exactly I'm in a two bed flat with 3 kids"

So your plan is to hope for a mesher order despite many posters telling you this is rare and vanishingly unlikely given your ex 's circumstances??

You need to get your head out of the sand OP.