Maintenance and mortgage payments

[CandlestickBlue]

I'm in the process of separating from my partner and am trying to gather information on my new financial position. We're not married, have one DC and own our house as joint tenants. I've got an estimate of how much maintenance I'd be entitled to but I'm not 100% how this is supposed to be used.

My assumption is that XP pays maintenance and I pay all household bills, nursery fees, plus feed and clothe me and DC. This is all fine but what about the mortgage? So far we have paid equally into the mortgage and I think XP is assuming that his maintenance will go on paying his half of the mortgage, entitling him to half of the value of the house when it's eventually sold. I don't think he can stipulate that, as I will need the money to pay all the bills, of which the mortgage is only one. So, as I see it, I will be paying all the mortgage from now on - does that give me a greater share of the house when it comes to be sold or does it all go 50-50 because we're joint tenants?

(I understand I can stay here until DC finishes full time education, but it's likely I'll move before then)

I'm off to see the CAB and will talk to them about it, but any advice in the meantime would be much appreciated.

Might give you a greater share of the equity if you are on a repayment mortgage but I would imagine 50/50 would apply on the sale.

Sadly there's no guarantee you can stay there till your DC finish full time education; if you want to go for that you'll need to make a Schedule 1 application under the Children Act 1989. If you do so, you can also ask the court to order your ex to pay part of the outgoings, including the mortgage.

If you don't make a Schedule 1 application, he can apply for an order for sale and as you're not married, the applicable law is Land law rather than Family law, which means that you each just get your half of the equity. You could ask the court to make a deduction from his share of an amount equivalent to his half of the mortgage but that won't help you in the short term.

I strongly recommend that you go to see a solicitor asap. You can find one on www.resolution.org.uk.

I wouldn't expect that on a schedule 1 application you'd get maintenance (in the form of mortgage help) over and above CSA payments unless he has a high income. Remember, if he's being denied access to the capital in the property he's going to have to rent, or take out a v high mortgage. If he's on, say, £1,500 a month net, he'd be paying you £225 a month via CSA (less an allowance ofr overnight stays) leaving him little to meet his own needs from, let alone pay you any more.

You would, in that situation, have to show that it is affordable, ie the mortgage can and will be paid. Remember, interest rates will go up in due course.

Whatever you pay off the mortgage capital you will be given credit for when the property is sold - the same applies to him.

Dunno, Collaborate, last one I did, admittedly about 5 years ago, I got an order that the ex paid half the mortgage in addition to the CSA money. He was on a decent salary, though.

What was the salary mumblechum?

if it does go to TOLATA/schedule 1 application then all details such as relative salaries, whether you can afford the mortgage, what he can afford to buy/rent on his salary after paying maintenance to the child etc - all depends on what sort of figures you talking about. and whether you can take on mortgage of your place on your salary.

f he very high earner and can afford to pay some of the mortgage plus maintenance this would be different from if you both on equal salaries etc.

so you really need as much financial info as possible on relative salaries, mortgage coss, how much quity in property(were it to be sold) , what would each of you be able to buy with that equity and mortage afterwards etcetc. download the form e
www.wikivorce.com/divorce/Forms/Ancillary-Relief/Financial-Statement-Form-E.html and both of you fill it in - this was used in court in my TOLATA/schedule 1 application even though we werent married - they used this form anyway as is standard financial disclosure form. judge was intereste in relative postiion when property was sold what could be bought what mortgage capacity was for each etc. if you staying and paying mortgage then what can ex do could he still buy even tho has this liability or would have to rent? how much would that cost him?

priority under schdule 1 is childrens needs to be hosued etc. depends on i you going for shared residency equal time living with each parent etc too.

you could come to an arrangement on sharing nursery costs (as you both need this to work) for example if you both working. as this is high cost now but child care costs should decrease later when child starts school.

if you stay in in property then you should pay mortgage (interest) as you occupying the property. if you werent there you would have to pay elsewhere.

obviously for form E at this point you dont need to worry about putting all details on but it gives idea of how courts look at income/expenditure etc and the relative needs of each person and their assets etc. you could do a much simpler form based on
income outgoings
childcare costs (now and in future)
mortgage costs
equity in property
mortgage capacity of each person if property sold and equity divided up 50/50
etc

Collaborate, can't remember but he was a GP so around £100k mark.

In an average case (say father earns 30-40k) the court is simply not going to think the father can afford to pay (or even should pay) above CSA rates. I think £100k pa is a bit different.

Thanks very much for your advice, it's really helpful to get an idea of how the law views these things.

I absolutely understand he has to pay for somewhere else to live now and have no wish to make life difficult for him. If I get the expected rate of maintenance I can just about cover the mortgage payments and have enough to live on, which I'm quite happy with. It is a repayment mortgage and we've paid off probably 60% of it already so there's a reasonable amount of equity. My main question is if i pay the mortgage on my own from now on do I get a greater share of the equity when the house is sold in a few years time?

Alternatively, is it worth suggesting to him that he keeps paying half of the mortgage (I'm willing and able to keep paying at least half in any event) in order to get half the equity when the house is sold? I must admit I can't see any advantage to him in doing this but it may be worth a try. I would even be happy to put a time limit on any agreement like this - maybe for a max of 5 years or so.

My earning power is likely to greatly increase in about 18 months but I don't have any recognised earnings until then so currently would be unable to get a mortgage on my own behalf. We are joint tenants, but the decision by the bank to lend us the money was based solely on my XPs income, even though I have paid for exactly half the deposit and repayments so far. Hopefully within a couple of years I will be able to get a mortgage in my own right and so can sell this place and move on, or buy XP out.

I'll go and see a solicitor to discuss this properly (thanks for the link mumblechum) but any further thoughts would be very welcome.

See if he'll agree to convert the mortgage to interest only. Might affect your credit rating, but it might make the difference between it being affordable or not. then it removes the need to argue over you getting credit for capital repayment.

Collaborate makes a good suggestion.

You should also think about severing the joint tenancy, otherwise if one of you dies the other will automatically inherit the deceased's share.

Hi. Remember guys that following KvJ there is the added fun of ambulatory trusts etc. Put simply if the way that you intend to divide the equity upon sale changes from what is written down in the documents held by the land registry you need to put that change in writing. If you don't then the fact that you may have paid more mortgage for a few years will no longer automatically entitle someone to a greater share of the proceeds of sale.

Would it be possible for you both to attend mediation or consider collaborative law as an alternative approach? It's faster, cheaper and more amicable that involving the courts. You also don't have the lottery of 'which judge will it be today'!

I second the recommendation to look at the Resolution website. I would also urge caution on what you are told by the CAB. I regularly see people who are referred to me from the CAB and so far as non married couples go the advice is somewhat patchy at best. If your chosen lawyer wont talk to you for a few minutes before you make an appointment for you to suss them out they are probably not worth instructing. But maybe that's just me.

cbmum: I think the doctrine of equitable accounting wasn't done away with by Kernott v Jones, and in that case Miss Jones didn't get the change in beneficial interests recorded in writing yet still got..was it..90%?

It's a minefield anyway, and I second the Collaborative approach, natch!