Help Needed - Advice on what to do next in separation.

[SparklyHelper]

Short summary - My daughter husband walked out on her around a year ago. She has a young child living with her. She is in a part-time job. Her husband has been paying bills since he move out, although a few months ago she has been paying roughly half of the mortgage, he has not paid any maintenance. (she has not asked for it). She pays child care fees for nursery with no help and feeds and clothes the child. He wants to sell the house, it's in joint names. She can't afford another mortgage on her part-time money. Has anyone experienced this and any advice welcome.

She needs to see a solicitor. If he's been paying everything, guess that counts as maintenance. But best get some legal advice.

Thanks for your reply. Trying to get some cheaper advice at the moment, as she can't afford expensive solicitor bills.

Lots of family lawyers give free initial phone calls ranging from 15 to 45 mins!

Legally he has to pay maintenance but not half childcare. If he’s paying bills / part of the mortgage then he won’t need to pay maintenance on top. Has your DD looked into whether she can get any universal credit - help with childcare costs? Sounds like house will need to be sold and she will need to look at renting. Unless she is able to increase her hours and afford a house if working full time.

I will check, thanks.

thanks.

There’s no automatic right to remain in the house. If she can’t afford to pay the mortgage and bills it may well need to be sold . A court won’t care about owning a home - only that she can afford to be housed adequately with her child ( and ex is too) even if that’s renting.

she may need to work full time or rely on uc top up. But will totally depend on the assets they have and incomes ( and income potential) . Unless he’s a very high earner spousal maintenance is unlikely

she really should :

educate herself on divorce process and principles of financial settlement

see a laywer - even if this is just for initial guidance and then do a lot of it herself.

thanks for your input.

She can try family mediation. No need to pay hundreds in solicitor fees at this stage.

Could she increase her hours?

TBF him paying half of the mortgage as an asset he part owns is reasonable plus CMS. Has she looked at the CMS calculator to see what he should be paying in on maintenance and is that roughly equivalent to the bills he is paying.

Is he looking after his child at all, there is nothing to stop him having them some weekdays and paying for nursery on those days.

50:50 split is assets and debts includes a share of pensions and the needs of both parents.

Has your DD applied for UC?

What does you daughter think /expect should happen?

No one here can advise other than general advise as there is no details given

ultimately a split will look at severing financial ties save cms where applicable
factors considered will include
their ages
the length of marriage
the assets they have
their earnings capacity ( what they can earn not what they do earn)
a court will prefer a clean break and in most needs cases won’t expect a spouse to pay mortgage or remain on a mortgage long term.
courts don’t care about house ownership.
if she can’t afford the mortgage and bills generally will have to sell. A court could give a grace period possibly.

of course it really depends on the factors above

have they started to discuss proposals ?

thanks will try

yes applied for UC, but it's not much.

Not spoken to CMS. I think we will try mediation service.

There are CMS calculators on line which would give a rough idea on how much she would receive.

If they don’t pay the mortgage then it will affect both their credit ratings and risks house repossession so it is in both their interests that it is paid and not just about who is living in it now.

I didn’t mean has she applied cms. She needs to careful if she does that he might stop all other payments so she should understand what would be higher right now.

have they started to discuss financial settlement ? What is she expecting from him short -medium -long term?

found them thanks and aware.

.

next step is probably financial mediation from what I can tell. But get your point.

Before financial mediation she would benefit from a session with a solicitor that achieves good results for people in her situation - you need to ask around for recommendations.

You need a thorough list of both of their current incomes, potential salaries, current financial obligations, like pension values etc etc. They can then give likely court outcomes based on this information which gives your DD an idea of what to agree on in mediation.

Not paying for a solicitor now could cost her far more in the long run either by settling for too little or wasting money at court hoping for more than she is likely to get.

do you have any recommendations

No as I divorced with a very reasonable ex 27 years ago!

Not paying for a solicitor now could cost her far more in the long run either by settling for too little or wasting money at court hoping for more than she is likely to get
It's always recommended to check any agreement with a solicitor before finalising it.

However, some solicitors are very keen to tell you you can get X, but fail to tell you that there are no promises at all they will win and that it will cost you anything over £10k for their service.

Op seems reluctant to share any details which could alter the advice. That’s her prerogative of course but means advice is very generic and that may or not be relevant to the specific case

if Op daughter expecting to keep a house she cannot afford, only other, get spousal maintenance etc that is probably very unrealistic. Equally it might be possible if her ex is a very very high earner. Equally if there are lots of assets she might get higher share to enable her to keep the house but if there are limited assets it’s very unlikely etc etc