Mortgage after divorce - what would you do?

[NorthGirlie]

Hi,
My marriage ended last year and we are currently at the stage of sorting out a financial settlement. I have 3 valuations booked for next week on the family home (mortgage free 4 bed detached house roughly work about £240-£250k).
Stbx has inherited property and has a bigger pension than mine due to being older than me and I worked part time for 12 years. Inherited property is ring fenced as he inherit after we split.
He is offering 50% of the family home so I’m looking at £120kish - possibly less once fees are deducted. I have the youngest child 100% of the time and he doesn’t pay maintenance. I hadn’t claimed due to living in the family home.
Anyway, there are some new houses being built in town £205k and £225k which would be ok for us (I’d need a 3 bed). These are both detached. I’d need a mortgage of up to £100k and this is what’s worrying me. I’d end up with very little disposable income (to a level I’d not sleep at night) paying this back as I need to pay it back in 10-15 years due to retirement age. I have worked hard and now a manager in my field but finding it stressful so I don’t want to be put in the position of having to stay in this role.
My stbx is mortgage free and will have his pension to himself (he paid AVCs throughout our marriage).
The houses that I am looking at are a good price for what they are and they’d take away the worry of house repairs for a good few years. There are only 2 houses available to reserve. I am thinking of reserving one tomorrow. Obviously, I can pull out if I need
to buy I’d lose the £500. I just feel like, without a financial settlement, I don’t know what I’ll get and, if I only get 50% of the family home, I will struggle in the future.
Id probably need an £80k mortgage tbh but worried about payments back at my age - 50. I’ve been mortgage free a few years now.

Shall I reserve the house or wait? I don’t thing anything at this price will be available soon and his solicitor is pushing me to get the house on the market. The new houses aren’t ready until August.

Sorry for the spelling errors! Typing quickly!

Eldest child is over 18

The inheritance might be ring fenced i. That it’s not for sharing, BUT it’s an important part of the picture in determining your relative needs. He owns and lives in another house. He has no mortgage to pay. He earns more than you. You have to have somewhere to live (with the kids?). You’re 50 and have a reduced earning potential because if choices made in support of his career.

So in terms of meeting housing needs, he doesn’t require anything from the shared marital pot to meet his. But you do.

He also has a much larger pension than you which is an asset to be split. And that’s important.

See a solicitor yourself. You need your own advice here. With full financial disclosure to support it - pensions valuation and all.

Why do you think he’ll have the pension to himself? It goes into the pot.

Do you have a solicitor, what are they advising around split of assists.

You need to push for as much as you can, this includes his pension in the pot. I'd also question if the inheritance wouldn't be taken into account. People who have divorced and not had a clean break clause can come back and make a claim on inheritance, lottery win etc.

I have friends who wanted to do the right thing and look fair. They are now living on the breadline while their ex are retired ad mortgage free. They are now very bitter about their circumstances.

Once you do sell the house you need to claim maintenance, so work out what that will be to support you to budget.

In regard to the house, if it's £500 I'd possibly take the risk.

His pension definitely isn’t just his to keep. Of course that’s what he wants you to agree to. But it’s not what should happen. If he wants his whole pension, he’ll need to offset it against equity shares.

The other thing the inheritance that means he’s housed and mortgage free regardless what happens to the marital home is that it reduces the income he needs to support himself post divorce. Him being older would mean that a looming income drop in retirement would form part of the picture. But it matters much less here.

Whereas you are only able to mortgage over 15 years which increases your needs from the marital pot.

A solicitor will be able to give you a much better indication if the relative weight of these kind of factors in determining needs and how to share the available pot.

Do not take what his solicitor says as the truth.

the starting point in divorce is 50/50 but if he has inherited property and it was post divorce, then that will be taken into account by a judge. The aim is for both parties to come out roughly the same so his property will be taken into account and you should get more. Have you not got a solicitor dealing with this. It sounds as though he is bouncing you into settling at a lower amount than a court will award. You are also entitled to some of his pension

Just to add I got 70/30 split in my favour because I was housing the children. If you are housing the youngest 100% of the time you will get more than 50/50. All pensions, savings etc must go in the pot

by inheriting property post divorce i mean you have no claim on it. if it was before the divorce it should go into the pot unless ring fenced.

Tbh, I’d be tempted to tell him I wanted the house in this situation. He’s got a mortgage free house to live in. And equal situation was for you to be in the same position. 🤣

Do get legal advice about whether to offer for him to keep the whole pension as part of this process. It can seem a good idea in the long term, but in the longer term you might benefit more from a proportion of that than you have from getting more of the equity now.

These things are quite complex and there is a lot to consider. The nominal starting point of 50-50 is assuming all else is equal. And all else is definitely not.

I think you’re being absolutely fleeced here. Be very careful. Go to a solicitor immediately. His pension is not just his; you have put your retirement in jeopardy in order to care for the children. Don’t trust a man who doesn’t want to involve solicitors. It’ll be in his best interests.

You need the valuations to even begin to assess whether his offer is reasonable - not to put the house on the market. Tell the EAs that it’s valuations as part of divorce.

And you need current valuations of your pension pots. And full disclosure of all other assets - and 3 months of bank statements too.

Once you have all that, then you can sit down with your solicitor and discuss what a court is likely to consider a fair settlement.

You might need to go to mediation but you should do that after getting proper, fully informed legal advice.

@Gooders1105

I think you’re being absolutely fleeced here. Be very careful. Go to a solicitor immediately. His pension is not just his; you have put your retirement in jeopardy in order to care for the children. Don’t trust a man who doesn’t want to involve solicitors. It’ll be in his best interests.

I agree.

Draw up a rough schedule of assets and liabilities, OP, it will save time, and therefore money, when you see a solicitor.

His pension could well be the biggest asset of your marriage. My SIL got over £250k because her ex had a massive pension. They'd split years earlier, made amicable agreements about the property and maintenance for their child, and didn't get round to divorcing or finalising the money stuff for 15 years.

She thought she'd be lucky to get £50k, she had no idea his earnings and therefore pension had increased massively in that time, and nearly died of shock when she saw how much he'd got in his pensions.

This is a needs case, so a judge will look at who needs what to be housed, care for the children and be secure in retirement. My guess is that you would get a much higher proportion of the house as he is already housed and you need secure housing as resident parent. This might be offset by him keeping his pension, that needs to be valued carefully and could easily be worth much more than the house anyway. In which case you would get 100% of the house.

Also put in a claim for child maintenance asap, he does not get to absolve himself from supporting his children at all that is disgraceful.

Use your £500 to get to a lawyer, get form E completed with valuations on all the assets, including the pension and the inherited house - he doesn't get to leave that off it just because you have no claim doesn't mean he doesn't benefit from it and that impacts a needs case. And start getting your lawyer to make some offers to him, go in high as you can only go down.

Hang on - you're not actually divorced yet? So why is the inheritance property off limits?

Are you getting proper legal advice?
You should be entitled to half of all assets including his pension.
Negotiate hard or pay someone to do it for you.
Don't overstretch yourself on mortgage. Payments of no more than 25% of your income over 10 years should be fine.

How old are your other kids?

I have a solicitor (have had for a year now) but it’s someone from a group of solicitors and I’ve had 3 in the last year as they leave. Hence, I’m concerned. The one I have now seems better but she doesn’t push the fact that my needs are greater as I didn’t inherit another property, plus my pension/earnings were reduced for 12 years and I have the youngest child 100% of the time. She is with me all the time as she refuses to go to his. The eldest is 18 and is leaving for university this year (as long as exam grades are ok). I pay most things for the eldest too apart from his food.
I know I need to push for more as I know paying a mortgage on my own, at my age, will put me not far off the breadline which isn’t fair on me or my daughter. I have always been the bigger earner as I worked hard in my career especially after going back full time a few years back to get promoted. He stayed in a low paid job throughout our marriage and did nothing to improve his earnings. So, I’m pretty pi**ed that he could end up with a nice ‘hefty’ pension (that he has topped up over the last 28 years) plus no child costs plus mortgage free plus a nice sum of cash in his bank account! Meanwhile, I’ll be struggling!
He is older by 10 years so his solicitor is arguing that he paid into a lot of his pension before we married and should be ring fenced.
I’m not sleeping well atm!

I'm currently going through this myself. His inheritance shouldn't be ring fenced if it came after your split but BEFORE divorce - it's still part of the marital pot. In fact, even if divorced but a financial settlement hasn't been agreed, then any future inheritances/pensions/ lottery wins(!) can still be shared by both parties.
Also, why do you think you're not entitled to his pension??

He inherited half of the other house. He has to pay his sibling off. Even after this, he will still be mortgage free etc.
I’m worried about living on the breadline until I retire. I paid more into the marriage over the years but this doesn’t count! I ended the marriage for various reasons, one being we’d been sexless for over a decade and it was obvious I wasn’t attracted to him and we were nothing more than friends.

@SpanielsMum

I'm currently going through this myself. His inheritance shouldn't be ring fenced if it came after your split but BEFORE divorce - it's still part of the marital pot. In fact, even if divorced but a financial settlement hasn't been agreed, then any future inheritances/pensions/ lottery wins(!) can still be shared by both parties. Also, why do you think you're not entitled to his pension??

We are through the decree nisi stage but not the absolute as I delayed it until a financial settlement was made. His solicitor is very good with words and seems to make mine look stupid.

@Citygirl2019

Do you have a solicitor, what are they advising around split of assists.

You need to push for as much as you can, this includes his pension in the pot. I'd also question if the inheritance wouldn't be taken into account. People who have divorced and not had a clean break clause can come back and make a claim on inheritance, lottery win etc.

I have friends who wanted to do the right thing and look fair. They are now living on the breadline while their ex are retired ad mortgage free. They are now very bitter about their circumstances.

Once you do sell the house you need to claim maintenance, so work out what that will be to support you to budget.

In regard to the house, if it's £500 I'd possibly take the risk.

3rd paragraph - what I’m worried about especially as I was the one who studied hard for a career and paid the biggest share of the bills over 25 years!

The 3 estate agents are aware it’s for a divorce. Also, both of our pensions have been valued.

I work for a divorce solicitor. If the absolute hasn’t been pronounced then the inheritance is definitely still in the pot and is not ring fenced. Have you both swapped form Es showing full financial disclosure?

@Useranon1

Hang on - you're not actually divorced yet? So why is the inheritance property off limits?

That’s what his solicitor is saying and my solicitor doesn’t seem to be saying anything against it.