Divorce house split help. Husband says it WILL be 50:50

[Onepollock]

My Husband and I are divorcing. We have children aged 2 and 4, the oldest has just started school so I am very keen on staying in the house.

1. our house is worth approx £350k with a £100k mortgage.

2. we bought just before we married (5 years ago) and as I put in £130k and he £80k to the deposit we signed a declaration of trust to register the split. Subsequently, we repaid £15k of his deposit which was made as a loan by adding it to our existing mortgage

3. we then extended with me putting in about £45k to the build costs and him about £15k.

4. the children are going to live with me (and have done since we separated in May). They will stay with him every other weekend when he has a house but currently I am moving out every other weekend from the family home so that he can stay with them as he is renting a very small place at the moment

5. I earn a part time salary of £27k and he earns £35k full time. I also get some kind of bonus which was good last year (approx 6k) but likely to be about 3k in Feb 2015.

6. we both have pensions of about the same amount £30k is as we're both only in our 30s. He has a rental flat which is worth about £85k and he has a mortgage of £67k (he added £20k to this mortgage to put towards our building costs). I have some investments worth about £11k and some savings in my name but that he knew were for the children £6k. I paid a half share of the mortgage on his flat for nearly 2 years when we lived there.

I can buy him out of our house to keep the children but I can not afford 50:50. I have been advised that as the children with me and in light of the greater contributions I have made the very least I should expect is 60:40 and the solicitor suggests I should also deduct the £15k we had to remortgage for as I will take on our mortgage alone.

I have lent him a lot of money in the past, he has run up debt without telling me and not been able to pay his share of childcare as he has other debts to pay off at points but is now saying he will get 50:50 or we will have to sell the house.

I just want to stay in the house to keep some stability for the children but it would mean that I would have a bigger/more valuable house than him.

Any suggestions would be very welcome.

Thanks

Go back and get legal advice. I don't think there is any way he is entitled to 50:50, as you will be housing the children. If you are prepared to buy him out then I think the courts can force him to accept that, rather than force you to sell up.

"I just want to stay in the house to keep some stability for the children but it would mean that I would have a bigger/more valuable house than him. "
That is quite normal for the parent who is housing the children for the majority of the time. A marriage with children involves the needs of more than just the adults, the needs of the children can be more important.

Stop worrying about being fair, and get what is fair for the children as well as yourself.

(I am assuming you are in the UK).

I am recently divorced and was in a similar situation with two young children.

You have two choices. You and the DC stay in the house until the youngest is 18. At this point you sell the house and split the proceeds. (Often this is referred to as being a charge on the property which becomes payable under certain conditions eg your remarriage/DC getting to 18 etc you can negotiate this) He may get 50/50 at this point as he will have waited for his share and the DC do not (legally) need to be housed.

OR
You can buy him out now, which will not be 50/50.
My exH demanded 50/50, I said I couldn't afford that and if he wouldn't be reasonable then I would have to get solicitors involved. He was stubborn. We got solicitors involved. He paid £200 an hr for his solicitor (!!!!!) and basically still had a choice of waiting until youngest dc was 18 or getting 33% of the equity now. He chose 33% of the equity now. I remortgaged and paid him off.

I couldn't afford any more, according to my solicitor, the courts will award approx 60-70% of the equity to the resident parent.

In your situation, all assets and debts would be considered as "assets of the marriage" including his flat etc and would be shared according to the agreed split.

In my case, we put equally into the house, if you put more in you would be entitled to more I expect.

Amazing. Thank you mummy and rain. My solicitor had suggested a 65:35 split which I can afford but I had an email from my husband's solicitor saying I can only expect 50:50 as I didn't make a Stella contribution and at some point in the future the children may live with my husband so he needs as big a house. This is highly unlikely as he doesn't want to see them more than once a week!

Does anyone know what a Stella contribution is?

I also had a phone call from my ex saying the starting and finishing point in these cases will be 50:50. I really need to learn to ignore him he is such a bully.

I can offer him a good deal in which he will get enough money for a deposit for a 3 bed house but I can't afford 50% of equity.

Also we'll save money by me buying him out as we won't have to pay to get out of our mortgage, pay court fees, costs of buying for both of us etc but he doesn't seem to see that.

Just tell him he can have 50/50, but he'll have to wait 16 yrs for it if he wants money now it will be 35/65

He means "stellar contribution". That's a term that relates to splitting wealth as a whole, though, and while I'm not a lawyer I don't think it's normally applied to the former matrimonial home when that is intended to form a residence for the minor children of the relationship.

I think your assets and income are about the same so if there were no children each would probably keep what they own and the house equity split 50/50. In law by the way it doesn't matter who put what in or the original trust or anything like that or whose names money and savings are in if you are married.

However there are children. I earned 10x my ex and the children stayed with me and my ex got about 60%. You don't earn 10x your husband. You earn about the same although if you went back to full time work your part time salary might end up a lot bigger than his of course but let us assume that is not possible or you don't want to. So the 50/50 if there were no children should probably be weighted in your favour as he does not want the children to live with him. Also you can only buy him out if it is less. Do check you can take over the mortgage though as your lender will have awful new rules now. No point in your ex agreeing a split and then you find you cannot take him off the mortgage and he can never buy another place because he is stuck on your mortgage.

Your greater contributions are not counted. It would just be if you were worth £100m or something that might come into play. The stellar thing.

You can stay in the house I think you said if he gets 35% but not if he gets 50%. What is the figure roughly. I was just trying to work out what is the amount that is the difference between your positions - his at 50% and yours at 35%. So you are arguing over 15%. My lawyer said my ex might get from 39% to 70% of our joint assets which is quite a broad spread and show how unpredictable the courts and law can be - no simple formula so better to settle than risk giving all the equity to lawyers over a long 2 year divorce case.

if the 15% is £10k or something it may be simpler to agree 50% and borrow the £10k from a relative. If the 15% difference between both sides is much bigger then it may be worth digging in your heels. I would definitely go for a clean break split with him as you both earn similar amounts rather than one of you paying the other any spousal maintenance.

Thank you Greengrow. 35% is about 80k and 50% is approx 115k. I can do a max of 85k but I can't afford more. Have checked with the mortgage people and they've said yes to me alone taking it on.

Yes to no spousal maintenance. He has been chronically underpaid for years and could easily expect to be paid another 20k if he moved jobs which is more than possible so yes I do earn more than him if 'I worked full time but I can't do that for at least another two years and then intend to work around school hours.

What is standard in dividing up house contents?

Thanks very much for all the advice.

So the two of you are arguing over £35k. If you are not careful you both might spend that amount going to court over this on lawyers.
It is difficult.

On house contents as my ex got nearly £1m from me and I still housed and paid for the children he left most of it - he had more than enough to buy new. I let him have anything he particularly wanted. I think he took his desk, one piano, an old family grandfather clock, organ and his clothes. We did not have any expensive furniture or paintings or anything like that. He bought a new cheap car - we both had very old cars. Some couples fight a lot about contents. I would expect if someone is staying in the house with the children it would be reasonable to let the ex take their own bed unless you have a double bed and make them replace stuff like kitchen equipment and TV but I expect a lot of them want to do everything 50sa5 - half the forks, half the knives. So petty.

Your ex needs to realise that if he went to court he might get 50% but he might also get20% or 35% and in the process you both might spend on legal fees the sum you are arguing over so if he wants the cash soon and no court hearings then your offer to him of 35% is a good idea which also means his children continue to be housed which most reasonable parents would see as a plus point.

My exH took all the crockery, cutlery, the dining table and chairs, sofa, our bed, the telly, the car, mirrors/pictures, chests of drawers etc. he wanted to take the wardrobes but did his back in trying to carry them () I let him take so much because I was desperate for him to move out. I said "take what you want" and he wanted everything.

Everyone was at his audacity.

Actually he didn't just take the car (that I used everyday to get to work, he got the train) he offered to sell the car to me IF I took over the remaining payments on the loan as well. I declined. The car later blew up ()

Well very nicely he's threatened to move back in unless I pay him 50:50!

Rain, your ex sounds delightful. I suppose I don't mind what he takes as long as he GOES AWAY.

It is still his house. My ex and I stayed inthe house until decree absolute, property transfers, re mortgage and until the money hit his account. There is no moral reason why husband or wife should not stay in the house until the divorce is done although I accept sometimes one or other of them moves out. It certainly concentrated our minds as we negotiated the money side of things.

In fact we have been advised that us living together would have a negative impact on our young children which is why I moved out in the first place so if he did move back it would a very selfish thing to do. He is a heavy drinker so not really a very positive atmosphere.

Assets are either marital or not.

If you bought the house as a family then it's marital.

If it was bought before marriage and you can prove what you contributed then you can claim an unequal split especially if your marriage is shorter than 5 years as it is a "short marriage".

I am in the same position. Print off those bank statements and emails as proof.

Negotiate yourselves and keep lawyers out. They are hideously expensive.

Zombie thread.