My inheritance used to buy house

[DoingItForMyself]

When my parents both died I received a substantial sum (6 figures) and put it into a savings account (I think in my name, but could have been joint).

When we lost money on the house we were living in we had to use my inheritance as the deposit on our current house. We still have a large mortgage (60-70% I think) and as I have only been working P/T, H has been paying all the bills with his salary from our joint current account.

Now that we are separating, is there any way this chunk of money will ever be mine again? Or does the fact that H has been paying the bills balance that out?

I don't want to seem grasping or selfish, I just want to know if this is something that can even be taken into account when deciding how to split assets.

FWIW he wasn't working when I got the money, as we'd sold our business and he said it wasn't worth him finding a job while the house & business premises were still up for sale so he could do viewings etc. This took a year to sell, hence we lost a lot of money.

Now that he has seen that I can get I.S. on top of my PT wage, he seems less inclined to rave about how he is planning to support us to still live here, so I need to find a way to be financially secure just in case.

Don't forget to think about any pension contributions. This will matter a lot when you are facing retirement. On the other hand this could be a trading card against your extra house equity? You are entitled to a share of pension if he has built up contributions while you were at home looking after children. I think you are feeling guilty and don't want to rock the boat. Perhaps he doesn't want to be involved with CSA? You really do have to fight for your children's future and think about where they are going to live as they need some stability at this point; this has to be top priority. Do watch out for being given the house and the mortgage to pay if ICS will pay this is affected a lot by CSA contributions that's the point of the CSA to reduce ICS claims. Good luck and keep putting the children's interests first, that's what he should be doing too even if he has to live in a bedsit.

NonGender, the problem with that is his shift work - he works most weekends and then random shifts which can be early (so he's out of the house at 5am and doesn't get back til after school, hence I'd still have to collect them or get a childminder for the sake of half an hour) or late (he leaves at midday and gets back at 10pm so he can only drop them off at school.) Its way too complicated to allow for any real set pattern.

Although I agree that it would be ideal to split things 50/50 - if he were an ideal father I wouldn't be splitting up with him! He has barely managed 5% of the childcare over the past 13 years and I have no real experience of working other than self-employed, so my job prospects are not quite as impressive as the career in which I have supported him. Hence I will remain the primary carer.

He has very little in the way of pension to come - we both said the house would be our pension.