First steps when splitting up

[Aliasforme]

Keeping this deliberately vague, so please bear with me.

A& B Together 20 years, married 10, adult children living at home. All family members working.

A&B are to separate.

House owned, both put equity into it.
Bills spilt 50:50
All household management and maintenance etc. are done by A, B has no engagement, and spends no time with family other than meal times.
Elderly pets.
Easier for B to move out but they won't. They won't look after pets. Won't engage with counselling. Seems to accept no responsibility for any of the problems.

No family close by.

What should happen first? May be difficult to find letting with a pet, but possibly not impossible.

In case of any doubt I'm writing this for A who has concerns that their internet usage and emails are being compromised.

Assuming:

1. They earn a similar amount
2. Their pensions are worth a similar amount
3. Neither of them is disabled
4. Their housing needs are identical

then the house should be sold and the net proceeds divided equally.

The adult children are irrelevant, as are the pets.

Both should seek their own legal advice.

Thankyou. I will relay this to A. I have that they seek legal advice regarding division of assets, etc. as soon as possible.

I don't know about wage similarity or pensions.
Nobody is disabled.
A believes B will take no action regarding assets, legalities, etc. based on B's stance to date.

Some equity came from an inheritance on one side, but I'm not sure that has any relevance.
Adult children would prefer to live with A, so there is some potential extra need in terms of housing requirement.

I suspect A's thought process was that they would need to move out in the interim, and would therefore had concerns about the wellbeing of the pets. They would not feel they could leave the pets behind as they would be ignored.

There are several charities which offer temporary dog and cat fostering for people in emergency situations where they can’t care for their pets. This doesn’t sound as though it’s an emergency per se and if A moves out it would surely make more practical sense in this scenario for one or more of the adult children to remain living in the house to care for the family pets, even if they don’t intend to stay living with B after the divorce.

The preference of the adult children to stay living with A won’t be considered additional need in terms of financial settlement. If A cannot afford to buy out B’s share of the property themself then as all the children are working, one option to explore could be one or more of them buying out B’s share of the property if they’re able to obtain a mortgage, and becoming joint owners with A - if they’re all keen to retain the family home or to move into a new home together. An inheritance is unlikely to be taken into account in a long marriage if it was treat as a marital asset during the marriage / used to buy the marital home etc.