Can he do this? Private school fees on divorce

[WiggleyPuff]

This is long sorry!

Divorcing a controlling man. We have three kids in private school and 600k of equity in an 800k house. He works in his family business.

There are two trusts:

• trust 1- has always paid the kids school fees. This stopped in 2020 (just before we separated). All the income is now diverted to his father “for tax reasons”.


• trust 2- owns shares in his family company. Pays his income (77k last year, historically ~96k)

he’s submitted letters to court from his accountant saying that his income will reduce next year. We’ve just done FDA. Fdr in October.

he pays nothing towards kids expenses because ‘he’s paying the school fees’. So I fund everything, uniform, clothes trips etc.

He emailed me in April to say he’d given notice to school in case we needed to take them out but that it wouldn’t be necessary if I agreed to his offer (200k equity - not enough for me to buy anywhere) I have a very low income.

I said we likely needed to take them out and we agreed I would look at other schools.

ive now found my daughter a place at an outstanding state grammar and the younger two places at an outstanding primary. The kids are a little disappointed but okay.

email went to solicitor - answer comes back: no you can’t move them, I’m paying from my income and I don’t want them to move.

On 77k a year after paying school fees and child maintenance he would have £500 a month left over to house himself and pay essentials - clearly it’s not possible. So I guess he’s planning to argue to use house equity to pay school fees or he will hugely increase his income after the consent order. Shafting me basically.

What are my options? I feel totally blind sided. Can he argue he can pay when he’s submitting stuff saying next year his income will drastically reduce and the figures don’t actually add up?!

I can’t give you answers on whether he can or cant use equity to pay school fees when his income has dropped but a few things occurred to me…

Do you get copies of correspondence from the school? You need to establish quickly if he ever gave notice and if he has subsequently withdrawn the notice and not told you. You have wasted time finding good schools that would solve income difficulties and now he is being inconsistent.

He could probably take out a loan against the mortgage but your solicitors might be able to prevent this now you are splitting finances. They may be able to make something out of his inconsistent behaviour. I would not cancel the school places you have found at the moment and would get legal advice quickly.

I agree that you need legal advice asap. I think you should go ahead with the new schools and speak to the private school HT. I am sure he will use school fees to bully and control you, so remove that weapon.

I think you need to put the kids first and not think of yourself here I am sorry. They don’t want to move he’s offering to keep them there, allow it and fight your own settlement seperately

You need to invest in outstanding legal advice. It is the best investment I ever made. My ex insisted our youngest with SEND left his independent school even though I offered to pay half fees. My disgraceful ex offered me the house with 2 years mortgage left on it in return he could keep 100 percent of business I owned 48 Percent shares in. Had business valued and it was worth four times value of house. In the end judge decided value of business, plus equity in house plus joint po ensigns be split 65, 35 in my favour as I was housing kids.

Get the CMS to do an assessment. then he can either choose to pay the school fees on top of that or take them out.

Unless of course you're both still in the same house, in which case the CMS cannot get involved.