Can anyone advise on finances in divorce please?

[HenriettaBarnet]

H and I are having an acrimonious divorce. He simply won't discuss finances at all.

I know that I have to file a form E, so I am doing.

My question is about what a judge may award me.

There are a few issues:

H is self employed and I have doubts that he will disclose all of his income

he only became self-employed last month so there aren't any records of his salary

He says that he isn't going to "kill himself" to get alot of clients as he was diagnosed with depression at Christmas when he lost his full time job.

the problem is that we have a big mortgage, alot of children and high costs. I need him to pay quite alot in child maintenance just to stay in the house and pay the fixed costs that we have. He's refusing to do this. He'd rather we lost the house and the children had to move than pay me enough to stay here. We couldn't afford another house in the area and it would mean moving areas and probably schools too. When we were more communicative he told me what he thought he'd earn in a month and it was enough to cover costs, but now he's changed his story and is saying he won't earn enough.

How would the court assess what his earnings are if there isn't a history of payments? How much money would the court think is reasonable to leave him with to live on? (as a proportion of his income?).

Is he obliged to be more conscientious about looking for more work? I have to look for another job and all of my income is going on the children (there's none left over for me to buy clothes or go out or have holidays).

I do have a solicitor by the way, but just trying not to keep firing questions at her as I think she's despairing of me.

Yes, I would second speaking to your solicitor and voicing your concerns regarding your ex's tactics. That is what he or she is there for and they will have seen it all before and can give you specific advice tailored to your case. Good luck!

I'm seeking all the capital in the house. My youngest child is 2 and we only bought last year. Equity is low but mortgage is high.

H's income is high - or at least he told me it would be before we split. Now he's saying it will be quite low.

costs are high to stay in the house and it needs alot of work on it. I have quite a high income (enough to support myself anyway) but the way it seems to be working at the moment is that H expects me to use 100% of my income on costs (mortgage, bills, food etc) and he only has to give a third of his income (which is at least twice mine).

I will speak to the solicitor but just trying to get a view on what is reasonable to ask from him.

What you can't expect is for you both to easily afford a separate place, there's just not enough money for that.

His 2/3rds left has to support a place too.

If your place needs a lot of work that may have been viable when you both supported the place but it's really unlikely to have spare money for home improvements once he's moved out.

Do you have spare rooms to rent out?

I massively regretted selling my home after divorce and really should have rented out a couple of rooms to help keep it.

my solicitor has advised me that he doesn't need a big place. There isn't enough money to fund 2 places big enough to sleep all the children, and their interests come first. In fact we got a good deal on this house and it would be impossible to buy anything big enough to live in and impossible to rent something at the same amount. in addition i have an au pair living with me. if I moved I wouldn't be able to afford an au pair's room and childcare costs would be much higher. I'm not entitled to any child tax credits. H would have to co-fund the childcare costs.

The only choice is to move a long way away which would mean moving schools. I am keen to avoid that.

my solicitor said that the court would not force a house sale as the children come first.

H is staying somewhere free at the moment. I think he can do that long term, but I'd rather he didn't.

He has potential to earn more but has decided he doesn't want to kill himself. This strikes me as rather unfair as I am going to have to look for another job and leave mine which I love and which fits in perfectly with the children at the moment.

He could earn more quite easily but just doesn't want to.

(he is a solicitor by the way working freelance, so can be really high earning if he wanted to be, but he doesn't want to pay anymore for me/his children). He'd rather I had to sell, but won't articulate where his children should live and how we can afford to house them. (London prices).

sorry no rooms to rent out. Possibly in 2 years time when/if ds goes to university. But I do have 3 children sharing a room at the moment which isn't ideal in the very long term.

the house is my only investment and I am keen to keep it.

A court won't/can't make him work more, and they won't tell him that he can only live in a small place as he "doesn't need a big place".

Nor will they tell him he has to meet all the childcare costs if you lose your au pair!

I am not a solicitor, but here is my very simple understanding.

Think of your money as equity vs income.

Equity is equity in house, savings, pensions (in either name they are joint property), anything else of value. On divorce the start point is you split the value of these equally. It is important you get as much info together as possible on how much equity you do have as you can juggle with this - he can keep his pension if you get more of the house equity; he can hold a share in the house until the last child leaves home then you have to sell up and give it back to him, etc etc

Your income is entirely your own affair EXCEPT you are both expected to spend a proportion of it maintaining your kids. If you are the person who they don't live with then maintenance is fixed at a % of your income. If you are the person they live with then nobody cares how much of your income goes on them as long as they are looked after properly.

So if your DH decides to have no income, that's tough on your kids (and therefore tough on you too) but that's his choice and that's the consequence of getting divorced.

Working on a 50:50 split of equity, a CSA-calculation of maintenance from him, and a sensible estimate of what income you could generate through working, where does that leave your children financially? Will they have a reasonable lifestyle? (not the same lifestyle as before, not necessarily the same home as before, but a reasonable one). If not, then you can really start haggling as the court is only really interested in their welfare - not yours.

I know that he doesn't have to pay childcare costs and has to have somewhere to live. My income is fully stretched at the moment. It couldn't cover an increase in childcare costs which is why the au pair is the only option for me. It also gives me the flexiblity that I need as a single parent to e.g. go to school meetings, drop different children off at different places and work late/early when necessary. the alternative of childminder, before and after school club and ad hoc babysitter would cost huge amounts.

The position is that we have high costs and debts. My income covers half of those. I need at least the same from him to cover them. However that doesn't leave any of my income to pay for anything that isn't fixed e.g. clothes, holidays, pets, presents, parties, leisure of any kind. He could be earning alot more (and may well be, I don't know). So the question I should have asked probably is what proportion of his income could/should he pay to cover the children. Presumably the court would allocate some of my income to my needs too?

I can't see that we can reduce costs if we stay in the area that we currently live in. Costs will go down when debts are paid off (in a few years maybe) but the biggest one is the mortgage - we only bought the house last March.

We agree that we want to keep the children where they are.

I am stuffed job wise as I changed direction so that I could do childcare etc. It would be extremely difficult for me to get back into a high paying role.

he has potential to earn loads. He stands to inherit a fair amount. (I know this isn't relevant for the legal case, but morally I think it is!). I am not looking to stuff him, I just want to keep the children where they are and keep my house as its all I have investment wise.

I should add that the amount I ideally need off him to cover costs exceeds the CSA amount. However I'm also paying the debts and his life assurance costs. Still even without those, I need more than the CSA amount.

we have 6 children though.

I suspect the best way of keeping the chidlren and you in the house is if you go back to full time work if you are not already doing so.

I am working full time already.

I suspect the moral of the thread is that women should never change their work to earn less to do more childcare at home actually but that's not much use hearing now.

My ex (5 children, both worked full time) got a large divorce settlement from me - more than half as I earned 10x more. He does not pay anything and our court order says I pay all school and university fees.

If there is quite a bit of money then it is quite common for the financial settlement agreement to say one side pays for the nanny (I paid for our nanny after the divorce although she left a few months later as planned anyway as the youngest were starting full time school).

It is very hard to get the self employed to pay much - that is going to be the bottom line. Most parents want their children kept in the same house if possible after divorce and to ensure they can eat etc. it might depend on what sort of self employment. There are divorce cases of partners at accountancy firms on £750k a year and all the finances are clear and laid bear whereas your local plumber can pretty easily pretend he earns very little and is ordered to pay very little. Be careful before wasting too much money on legal fees if the end result might be that he does not pay much.

Have you considered things like extending the mortgage to 30 years, going interest only until the children are less expensive to keep and your income rises, a second job at weekends (horrible though that thought might be), making children share rooms and taking in a couple of lodgers. I know people who split the house in two and carry on livign together to save costs. Others of course remarry and are splitting costs with a new partners. Others keep the chidlren in the house and the parents move into two small one bedsits and move to and from the house at will - he might be more likely to pay if he had the benefit of the house for half the week although apart from that helping children who much prefer it than having to move around when the chidlren did not cause the divorce, it is not popular with parents as an option. I am just trying to think around the issues.

I cannot live with him - he is extremely abusive and unpleasant.

I can rent rooms out in a couple of years I think. Yes, I agree I shouldn't have reduced my earning capacity (although I do love my job much more now) but it's impossible to go back to previous earning capacity.

he is just being a bastard, not responding to emails, not telling me what he is earning, not confirming whether he is giving me any money each month, and expecting me to pick up all joint debts (because he's simply not paying them). I really don't have the money to take him to court over this - we do have to agree to the financial side.

I'm not sure about extending the mortgage - I'll speak to our adviser about all of this I think. I've held off so far, but maybe its time to think about that. Would mean working until I'm 70 though as the mortgage already lasts until I'm 65, so not sure if that's possible. also stbxh has no income records and for the time being he needs to stay on the mortgage so remortgaging is likely to be impossible.

I wouldn't be paying his life assurances then and I would start negotiating on the debts.