Divorce offer

[Joy5]

I'm received an offer from my soon TBEH this morning via my solicitor. His offer is, we sell the family home, use what little equity there is to pay off the debts from the marriage, i get a share of his pension, and he then pays £345 a month maintenance for our youngest son until he is 18 or out of FTE.

The equity in the house will only just cover the marital debts, and the estate agents costs.

The marital debts are a debt management plan we took out a few years ago. As a consequence both our credit ratings are in a bad way, i tried to take out a smaller mortgage earlier this year, to downsize the family home, i got turned down, the same happened when i tried to rent.

I have 2 sons living with me, a 14 year old, and an 18 year old, who isn't working or in education (he is suffering from depression). The mortgage is nearly a thousand pounds a month, my salary is 7k and with tax credits i pay the household bills, my STBE husband has been paying the mortgage.

Am i likely to get the mortgage paid as part of the maintenance if i try and obtain it? Feels like my STBEH has made the minimum offer he can, and doesn't care what happens to us as a family. Not sure which way to turn, not eligible for legal aid at the moment, i'm still receiving tax credits at the moment for my 18 year old, although that will stop at the end of November.

His salary is £40k.

It depends on whether the debts can reasonably be said to be a joint debt.

And whether you're working PT, I presume that you are if you're only earning £7k pa.

To be brutally frank, even if you establish that he is solely responsible for the debts, so that the house is transferred over to your name rather than sold and the proceeds applied towards the debts, he only earns £40k, so by the time he's paid for somewhere to live, paid child mtce for the 14 yr old (obv. there's no obligation to pay anything for the 18 yr old) and paid the monthly payments for the debts, it's extremely unlikely that you'd get any spousal mtce to help you with the mortgage.

If you work full time and earn sufficient to pay the mortgage and everything else then you'd have an outside chance of getting the house transferred to you if there isn't much equity in it.

i work part time, trying to increase my hours, but not managed it yet. Debts are in joint names, i just want to stay in our home until i can get full time work and then try and re-mortgage myself. The monthly payment for the debt is a debt management plan, he pays just over £100 a month for it.

He originally lived in one bedroom flat when he first moved out, then into a 2 bedroom house, and has changed his car this year to a much newer model. Yet has a gf who he stays with several times a week.

Just seems like he wants us out of the family home, and to pay the mimimum amount he can.

I also tried to rent earlier this year, as my STBE missed a few mortgage payments. I got turned down on my credit rating. The letter from his solicitor says if i don't accept his offer, then it will be passed on to the judge to decided.

Would a judge really order us out of the family home, when i can't at the moment rent or buy myself? I tried the council and they said a minimum of 15-20 years wait for a council house.

Would it be possible to find a second PT job to make up the hours if you can't increase your hours in your current job?

It's a tricky one, if it goes to court the Judge has to be fair to both of you, and arguably if the debts are significant (I'm assuming £25k plus), and were run up for the family, not just your husband's benefit, then yes, there could be an order for sale so that you both start off with a clean slate. I would, however, expect any excess to be paid to you, depending of course on the figures involved, plus a pension sharing order.

The thing you have in your favour is the fact that you still have your 14 year old living with you (the 18 yr old doesn't get taken into account unfortunately), and that your earnings are far lower than your husband's. You do need to provide evidence that you are making strenuous attempts to increase your earnings so if I were you I'd be keeping copies of all applications for FT jobs, rejection letters etc. No one can criticise you for working PT if you are clearly trying to improve your circs.

I'm working about 30 hours a week at the moment, my hourly rate is low, and i'm only employed for part year too.
I've been looking at the figures again now,the equity in the house isn't going to cover the debts anyway (we had the house valued a year ago), they are about 30k, so we wouldn't both be left with a clean slate, we'd still have debts.

Really don't know what to do next, doing my best to boost my 18 year old, hes aspergers so moving home won't help him at all, the death of his brother and his father walking out has hit him badly. He's now older than his brother was when he died, and dealing with all sorts of guilt about it.

ExH isn't seeing his sons again this weekend, only so many excuses i can make for him, seems every time he makes a decision he knows we won't like he avoids seeing them. Hes gone from being a suberb father to one who will avoid seeing them if he can possibly help it.

But we need a home to live in. How i manage to keep one, i'm struggling with right now.