Any divorce solicitors or those with similar experience who can advise please?

[catchingzzzeds]

Married 18 years
Separated for 10 of those

bought house 2013 for £247000
now worth around £380000
£140000 left on mortgage

2 children living in the family home with me, aged 19 and 13. 19 year old working full time

husband has paid the mortgage and utilities since the split

husband has the children 3 nights a week
youngest home educated by me for 2.5 years due to mental health and I work 20 hours a week in a supermarket

stay at home mum until youngest started school and worked part time since.

husband earns around £100000, made complicated by paying himself through shares and dividends via a couple of limited companies

husband wants me to start paying half the mortgage or if I can’t he wants to adjust the equity split. I just don’t have the money to pay half the mortgage.

Spoke to a solicitor who explained the divorce process but said she couldn’t advise on what’s fair or what a likely outcome would be- complete waste of £300

My instinct is to sell the house now and have a clean break going forward. It’s been stressful over the years relying on my ex so much and I feel he uses it to be controlling.

I haven’t yet mentioned selling the house now and I’ve no idea if he would agree to this.

if we don’t sell now how and what do I do about the equity split? Even with 50/50 I’ll never be able to afford to buy somewhere myself so I’ll be relying on the money to keep me until I can work full time.

if we do sell what equity split shall I push for?

Any advice appreciated please

It's a tough one if he's going to hide his income. Do you have any proof of his earnings? If you can then it's likely you can get a much bigger slice of shared assets.

Don't forget it's not just the house. It's the limited companies, his pension and any savings etc.

Do you know the value of any of those? In theory you could ask him to pay off the mortgage and gift you the house to offset everything else but it really depends on what tangible assets there are.

If he could close his companies and restart them under a different name easily then it's much harder. As his spouse you should have some owneeship though.

Get yourself to a lawyer op!

Thank you for your post. No proof of his earnings, I’m pretty sure he has no pension or savings.

I have an appointment with a different solicitor next week and keeping everything crossed that she is more helpful.

Ok, well the usual starting point is that the needs of the children need to be met. The 19 year old is not counted as a child, so it would just be the 13 year old.

as they are not in school there isn’t the issue of getting them to school each day.

what are the house prices like around you? Is there any prospect of buying somewhere?

realistically your husband has been doing much more than he needed to in continuing to pay for the mortgage and bills.

it’s worth discussing with him - does he want to take over the house/move in and buy you out?

The other option is sell the house (not a good market right now) and take your money and either try to rent in your area or move somewhere a lot cheaper.

re the process , you’d go to mediation first so it’s worth talking to your husband first.

Thank you, it all feels so enormous right now. I realise I’ve been very lucky up until now and I want to be fair whilst not stitching myself up

This website is very useful, and practical.

https://divorce.wikivorce.com/

You need to get a full time job now.
You are very very fortunate your ex has been so generous for 10 years.
You will have to use the money from the sale to rent if you can't buy.

I think you and your husband need to have a conversation about divorcing and splitting assets. It isn’t up to you to decide whether and when the house gets sold. He needs to be on board with that as well.

If you are separated and he has moved out then you need to be responsible for your own living costs at some point. That is a bit complicated if you are living in the family home and it is expensive to run. It sounds like he has been ok with subsidising this to date but now wants you to take over more of running costs. If he is paying child support and has his own home that is fair enough.

The divorce will split assets according to need in such a way as to make you equal. You are both responsible for one dependent and will both need a home to meet that responsibility. He may have a higher income (his HMRC declared income will be relevant) than you can earn. That could mean you get a higher %. However for the purposes of divorce your maximised income will be used. That doesn’t just take into account you working FT it also takes into account your earning potential. That means if you are qualified to earn more they will take that into account as how much you can earn.

Completely fair you start paying. Can’t believe you haven’t forecast 10 years

you need to formalise divorce and financial split and start being financially independent, no one here can advise properly what that will look like - see a solicitor

your 19 yo won’t factor into housing needs .

Is he happy to take on 50% of the homeschooling so you can return to work full-time? Or pay for tutors to facilitate that?

My DH was in this position with his exW. He was still paying for everything for years and it became awful for us all - we were unable to buy a house for years and the children we had together ended up shunted around different rental properties, as did their kids together who are with us 50% and his ex wife had it hanging over her that ultimately she was living in a house she couldn’t afford.

I agree a clean break is best for everyone and I think he’s been incredibly generous to cover all the costs for such a long time.

If it gets to court any judge will expect you to be working, and any decision on the split of assets will be based on a balance of fairness and need. In the case of my DH the house had to be sold, proceeds were split 60-40 in her favour and my husband has no further obligation to his ex other than child maintenance for a couple more years. But a 50-50 split is always the starting point for the conversation.

I doubt this will be a consideration at all. Education is free in the UK and he would be under no obligation to home school or pay for private education on his income.

The OP needs to have a grown up conversation about where things go next. Throwing out petty demands isn’t going to facilitate that. She is free to use her share of the marital assets anyway she wants. She is unlikely to be facilitated to work part time unless her ex agrees to it. But she can do if she wants. It won’t be a good choice in the long run if neither of them have done any pension planning.

Just as an aside. Has H bought another property? If so it will be a marital asset and will need to be disclosed along with his car, pension, savings, shares etc etc.

You may have one thing in your favour if you did not complete a financial order when you divorced. The courts will look at your current financial position, both of you. If he is such a high earner, I very much doubt he will have no pension or savings.

Not if it ‘belongs’ to his business 😳

Thank you for your advice everyone, I appreciate it. It’s very difficult to see the wood from the trees when you’re in the centre of it.

I’m aware I’ve been very lucky up until now. I know he has been generous, although I don’t receive child maintenance because he has been paying the mortgage and utilities he has still been pay£4-500 per month over what he would have been ordered to.

I’ve allowed myself to be in a vulnerable position financially but both my children are neurodivergent and working full time would have/had a detrimental effect on them. I would love to be able to work full time and have been working full time for a long time, it’s an awfully vulnerable feeling being so reliant on someone.

They aren’t divorced. This might mean that post separation assets are not included or relevant to the settlement.

I read this message thinking we have the same husband / EW!

In my case - my now DH had been paying the mortgage in full, bills, maintenance on the house (+ child maintenance) for 5 years after splitting / moving out. EW refused to get a job - the kids were 7 & 11 at the time. She had gone on maternity leave 11 years earlier then wouldn’t return to work.

She seemed to think this arrangement would go on forever. When I met my now DH he was living in a 1 bed rental flat with a good job struggling to pay for everything. He was absolutely drowning.

The EW refused to budge. She wanted to stay in the house until the youngest was 18 - he pay all the bills & maintenance of the house. She wanted spousal maintenance (he was earning circa £70k at the time), and child maintenance.

By the time I came along their relationship was toxic. She was demanding more and if she didn’t get it she stopped child contact.

Ultimately it went to court. The courts will look at needs (not wants).

House was ordered to be sold in 5 years - she would have to pay the mortgage & bills in that time in full then there would be a 37.5% / 62.5% split in her favour. She got half of his pensions and a car. No other obligations apart from paying child maintenance.

I won’t sugar coat this….. You have had 10 years to sort this out and your EH has been very generous in that time. I’d recommend you put your youngest back into school and get a full time job. Your EH isn’t responsible for you now. The house will need to be sold and you can either rent, buy or look at shared ownership. The courts won’t care if you rent or buy. The sooner you face into this the better.

Good luck 🤞

eeeek yeah! Our situations were alarmingly similar! Let’s hope we’ve not married the same man 😂

Don’t worry- not the same man!

My situation is different in that my ex has paid the mortgage and utilities instead of paying any maintenance. I realise this was stupid of me and I should have insisted on maintenance and then paid the bills myself. Putting it through the government calculator he would have had to pay around £1000 a month in child support.

I have an appointment with a solicitor next week to hopefully get some advice on how to settle all of this.

If he is employed by his own companies and pays himself via dividends, there is no guarantee that you will get what you think you are due in CM.
He can hide his true income and it can't/won't be touched for CM purposes
The fact that he paid the mortgage/bills in lieu of CM is good as at least you got something.