Family home

[Spinning12335]

Can someone please talk me through what may happen with the family home with divorce/ what the options are?

We own jointly and have 2 young children. They would most likely only have day visits with him until quite a bit older so I would have pretty much sole custody( he struggles with their behaviour and they are very clingy with me at bedtimes in particular).

I wouldn't be able to buy him out. We have a big chunk of equity.

I may just about be able to pay for living costs and mortgage if I extended the term and upped my hours. He earns a lot and has plenty of savings so would get another place no problem.

Thankyou so much.

I think there are enough assets to divide pretty equally with the house against all else.

I can afford the mortgage by my sums but the bank probably won't think it's a big enough margin. I need to speak to them. I don't want a mesher order if we can avoid it.

If not then a move out of area will be the only solution. I know all children have to cope with change but divorce/ home/ school is an awful lot all at once.

As far as I understood the OP's posts she was suggesting nothing of the sort. She was suggesting that the house equity may be equal to 50% of assets and that in that case she could relinquish any claim over the other assets and her husband relinquish his claim on the house, if the bank would let her transfer the mortgage to her sole name. And that the other assets would then provide sufficient money for her husband to put a deposit on another mortgaged property for himself.

I and other posters pointed out that eatablishing whether this is feasible requires a full valuation of all of the assets etc. But I'm not sure why you object to the above in principle - if the asset values stack up - because your posts seem to be about an entirely different kind of scenario, where one person would be left with insufficient means to obtain secure housing.

Been looking at mortgage calculators and had a few phone calls with banks( not my own). Even with 90-100 000 deposit and ftime hours I've had offers to lend between 8 and 20,000. Banks saying very wary of approving single wages below 40,000, very little chance with dependants.

Wouldn't even be enough for a 1 bed flat.

He on the other hand would be lent 150-200 000 with the same deposit. So most likely he gets to buy a new property with room for the kids if he wants despite not having them for overnights, I have to rent, move area, schools etc to afford to rent and I guess put any equity into savings for retirement/ my future?

I bet he'll want to stay in this property and buy me out. Kids will end up wanting to move 'home' when they are older won't they. So shit.

Banks only suggestion was to see if I could get a guarantor for paying current mortgage. The only person I could feasibly ask would be him or his family. So not very likely.

We offset my XH pension against the equity/my small pension in the house.

So . . He kept all his pension. I kept the equity/pension. He kept his savings. I kept mine.

I had to give him a lump sum of cash and he gave back an amount in a pension sharing order.

I remortgaged and extended my loan term to the maximum. I kept the family home.

My mortgage provider took into account tax credits and child benefit but not child maintenance as that isn't guaranteed.

I would get child benefit but not tax credits by the looks of it because of ft wage. Maintenance could potentially be a lot but isn't guaranteed like you say. Extending mortgage term still leaves it at around £800/ month. Anyone know what proportion of monthly income banks class as affordable?

I have no idea why you are working on the assumption that your DH will not get overnights with the kids, the fact that you don’t want it doesn’t make it so. Being clingy to you at bedtime is really not a reason that will stand up in Court. Separation is scary and I totally get your anxiety about the housing situation but remember, your children have two parents and both parents need housing that can accommodate the children.

Definitely nor more than half, ideally one third. The good news is that they do like teachers.

You really need legal advice. Your EX’s mortgage capacity and other assets will be taken into account. It all goes into the pot for division. The court would not just expect you to sell up and live in a 1-bed flat. If you do end up having the kids more, you’ll likely also get a larger share. But you will likely be expected to work more. Lots of lawyers offer a free or discounted initial session.

It's not just what the law says either, you have to use your common sense. The vast majority of divorces don't get decided by a judge, they get decided through negotiation. The first piece of common sense is don't burn equity on legal fees if you don't have to. When divorces are decided by a court, the outcome is not always fair. It might be based on mistruths that were believed by the judge or true fairness might have been considered impossible because of the needs of the children. Those same outcomes that seemed unfair also normally need to be enforced for a long time to come and that tends to be tricky (maybe this is why clean breaks have grown in popularity?)

Consider my situation. I earned more than my wife because she chose not to have a career and bumbled through her 20s in menial jobs with short hours and then we had children. She tried to get an unfair settlement because - much like in her 20s - she still had no desire to start a career when we divorced. Absolutely key to her continuing this lifestyle choice was a settlement that allowed her to squat on my mortgage capacity until the youngest was 18 rather than developing a mortgage capacity of her own. A court could well have given her a transfer with chargeback to do exactly that.

However, as I pointed out to her, she wouldn't be out of the woods by doing that. She would have succeeded in ruining any chance I had to be a homeowner now or in the future and the only reason I have the job I do - which I dislike intensely - was to own a house. I pointed out to her that if she got this transfer with chargeback, she would be liable to pay the whole mortgage and I would be indemnified. The mortgage payment would be more than she earned (with interest rate rises now it would swallow up all her income and all her benefits). So she would be very dependent on child maintenance for everything else.

However, I would have no motivation to carry on in my current job because the only reason I did it was to have a bigger mortgage capacity. The job came with an expensive commute and with child maintenance I already didn't see the last £20k of what I earned. So I hinted to her that if she got what she wanted with the house, she might find the £1.2k of child maintenance she was expecting might turn out to be more like £600 as I pursued a career I enjoyed now that I had no possibility of owning a house....

Moral of the story is get a clean break and stand on your own two feet. If you do rely on another adult to carry you, don't take the piss or you might find their enthusiasm for earning money evaporates.