Relationship breakdown - advice please

[Cudz]

So my DP told me that he wants to separate. We aren't married but have a joint mortgage (property value of approx 220k with a remaining mortgage of 40k, so approx 180k equity between us) as well as approx 30k in savings. In addition to this our son who is 11 has 30k in savings gifted from relatives over his lifetime. This is all very new and has come as a shock so I obviously will seek legal advice over the coming weeks once I've begun to process things but can anyone give me an overview of my financial standing please? Can he make me sell the house for his equity share? Does he have any entitlement to our DS's savings? Initial talks are that DS will stay with me for the vast majority of time (due to his shift pattern and also the distance he will have to move away temporarily to stay with family so he isn't living in our home) and that we both want things to be as amicable as possible for the sake of our son. I work full time and earn 27k a year so not exactly big money but I could just about scrape by each month if I can stay in this house and take over the mortgage as long as he pays maintenance like he says he will (approx £200 per month based on government estimates). All advise welcome. My mind is blown and I'm sure some of you lovely ladies who've been through similar will have words of wisdom for me. Thanks so so much!

I would also like to reiterate that you will definitely not be awarded a Mesher order. So it's better to put that idea aside now.

I hope my messages don't sound harsh! I'm trying to relay as much information as possible but I really do feel for you.

Big hugs from me.

As you are not married its really very simple, lawyers are not required, there is no settlement, no divorce. If the house is owned as a joint tenancy, you both own 50%, or if its tenants in common you each own whatever % is specified on the deeds. He has the right to request a sale and get his share of the equity. You can ask him to wait to do this, but he has no obligation to accept. He only owes you child maintenance from now on. You could probably borrow about £70,000 for a mortgage, will that and the equity be enough to buy anything in your area?

@hellojelly yes so much to talk and think through but I do like the idea of hopefully being able to put things on ice for say 18months to allow my son to adjust and process (given his previous mental health issues) and then look at selling. Ex dp has some debt that he wants to work on clearing anyway which he already says will take him about 12 months and he's planning to move back in with family during that period so hopefully an extra 6 months in addition to that could be agreed between us (legally I know these things can take time anyway). He keeps saying he doesn't want ds to lose his home because he knows how fragile he is so hopefully we can agree on this for the sake of ds 🙏

@tomatoontoast 9.5k of the 30k savings were from my redundancy about 5 years ago so is that ring fenced for me? Therefore leaving 20k savings to be shared 50/50?

I hope it works out for you, I really do. My ex was all up for being amicable until he met someone else a few months later and suddenly everything needed to be sold and split asap. I was fortunate to be able to get a mortgage on my own so in the end it was alright, but my one piece of advice is make sure whatever you're doing you're saving as much as you can and covering your back. If he did decide to pull the rug from under you it makes a world of difference x

My experience is these things rarely stay amicable when money/houses are involved. I’d get planning a way to buy/rent your own place when the house is sold.

@Cudz
What I would do......
Find out what the repayments would be on a £130k mortgage - go on any banks website to get a rough idea, put the loan length as 67-your age.
Can you afford this? Most likely cheaper than renting.

Then, have you got a parent who is working but mortgage free? Would they take out a joint mortgage with you?

If yes, then go to the bank or mortgage advisor and discuss.

As you are not married, there's no 50/50 starting point for splitting assets.
You only need to split the house, so I'd aim at the very least to retain your redundancy payment.
He can't access any of that 30k.

Id get ahead of the game quickly, find out what you can afford then offer him just the 90k equity for a quick solution.
If he has debts, that'll help him clear them - a bonus of not being married is no link to the debts.

Thank you I really appreciate you replying. I've looked and a 100k mortgage would be £850 per month for me over 25 years so no bank would give me that (that includes me raising 30k from family to take it from 130k down to 100k). My parents are both retired so they couldn't go on the mortgage with me unfortunately. It's not looking good for me is it 😥

Although it’s different because I was married I did dig in and managed to keep my home when my husband left. He was clear from the outset he didn’t want the children overnight and that he wanted to walk away and not have any responsibility - there was an OW of course!

his equity share of the house, pensions, savings should have been around £60k but through mediation and the financial order I pushed the fact I would be solely responsible for the children, initially the proposal was for a mesher order and once that was agreed in principle I decided to check with our mortgage provider what I could get, which if I extended the mortgage (back to 25 years 😢) I could take the mortgage on myself and raise an additional £25k which he, his solicitor and the judge accepted on the grounds it was a clean break.

it’s so scary and it was an awful 14 months but I stuck to what I believed was right which was stability for my children, yes I’ve been told I wasn’t fair to him but I really didn’t care. Work out what’s right for you and your son and then try and negotiate for it - I don’t know what the route is if you’re not married to get it agreed it might be between yourselves but presume you could use a mediator.

@Lolliloo1 thank you reading that gives me some hope. I'm glad it all worked out reasonably OK for you in the end. In reality if he stays amicable I do believe he possibly would settle for around 80-85k as I will be having ds for the vast majority of the time (he is extremely clingy to me and he would not want overnight stays with ex dp which ex dp has already acknowledged). Don't get me wrong I would allow him to see ds anytime he wishes and we really want to be flexible about that rather than having set days and times which just wouldn't work for ds at this point in time. So he acknowledges that I have that massive extra responsibility on me. From what he's said he would eventually like a small flat local to us so he's close to ds and they go for around 150k here so the 85k would be a decent (ish) amount for a deposit for him and should mean he could get an affordable (ish) mortgage. I could extend my mortgage at a max by 25k I reckon and I could then hopefully raise about 30k from family but it's just then another 30k that I need to magic up from somewhere 🙄

@Cudz

The £850 a month ought to be affordable - you're not going to be able to rent anywhere for much/any less than that.

Have you looked at universal credit entitlement?
Assume no savings, or the max 6k allowed.
Look at Entitled to

Some banks would allow you to take UC income into consideration.

I managed to take over the joint mortgage on divorce on an affordability basis with HSBC, taking tax credits in to account.
I was probably earning less than you and needed to borrow a similar amount.
It would be worth speaking to your current lender.

Do you work full or part time?

Can you get a 2nd mortgage or loan for his % of equity?

@Cudz my view at the time, was that it was worth going all out to keep the house as it would cost 20-30k to move to a cheaper house anyway. So any help / loans from family is an investment rather than money down the drain.

@House4DS yes exactly my thoughts. By moving I'd lose at least 10-15k in solicitors fees, estate agents, moving fees, etc. Plus I want to stay here for some stability for my son who I know would seriously decline if we had to move.

I know it is a difficult time for you right now. As you already know a mesh order is very unlikely. He is entitled to 50% of the equity. I earn a similar amount to you and tried to get a single mortgage in my name last year and was offered £85k. I needed £92k to cover existing mortgage so back to waiting another year.

The problem with kicking the can further down the road is that your needs won't change. Your son will still need a home and you will be older. And property more expensive. Approach your current mortgage provider or broker. Look at UC some providers will include them as well as child maintenance see if you can make the numbers work.

Take each day as it comes and try not to be too over whelmed.

I'm so sorry this is happening to you, so sad and scary.

I might have missed something, but surely the clearest way forward is:

Sell the house - you each get your £85k equity out of it.

Flats near you with space for a parent plus DS are £150k, you say. So no stamp duty, which is great. Set aside £5k of your equity for moving fees and costs, and you are looking at needing a mortgage of £70k to afford a flat for yourself and DS.

On your salary of £27k, you should be able to get a mortgage of around £90k, so £70k is totally doable.

£70k at 5% interest over a 15 year term, to pick a reasonable-ish figures out of the air, is a monthly repayment of £554. That sounds reasonable to me; if it sounds high you could extend the term etc to make it more affordable, depending on your age.

And all that without even touching your savings.

So...I think there is a way forward.

I may have mis-gleaned some of these facts eg maybe the £150k flat isn't a two bed price. But there's enough slack in the above to accommodate even things like your new home costing more than £150k, moving costs being higher than expected, etc, especially given you have some savings.

It does mean needing to accept that you have to leave the family home, but ultimately it doesn't sound like you can afford to stay there, which makes sense as it was affordable based on you both living there together. Now you need to live separately, and more cheaply as individuals, so you can both move on. Good luck.

I’m not sure if you are saying someone in your family will give you £30,000 or if you think you can borrow it from them. You should be aware that unless the £30,000 from family is a gift, the mortgage company will take it into account as a debt you owe and offer you less.

People can and do lie (claiming a family loan is a gift) but:

1. This is technically mortgage fraud.
2. The family lender will have to sign a gift letter for the mortgage company which they may not be willing to do as it means they would have massive difficulty getting the money back.
3. The recipient then has ‘hidden’ debts which they won’t be able to tell the mortgage company about (see 1) if they ever run into issues with repaying the mortgage.

Also, you haven’t said which family member you think you can get the money from. Parents giving money is normal for those who are lucky enough to have parents who can afford it but unless your sibling / cousin / distant relative is seriously rich, it’s much less common to get it from them and the mortgage company may investigate

I understand you are trying to find a way to stay in the house but from what you have said, it just may not be possible.

Whose name are the savings in? If the savings are in your name only, legally the money is yours.
Also sounds like your DS's savings in your name? Why? Children can have premium bonds in their own name.

@Marmight no my ds's premium bonds are in his name but I am the allocated parent for his account

@CrabbiesGingerBeer this would be my parents and we would do it all legally and above board as a gift. Nothing has been properly discussed or agreed with them as yet so it's still all TBC as it's such early days of still processing the news of what's actually happening!

@Cudz
Good to hear that they are in his name.
Looking on the Nationwide website, a £100k mortgage with a house value of £230k and over 25 years is way cheaper than £850 a month. More like £575 assuming you have the income to support £100k mortgage and no adverse credit/debt.
Please take a look yourself or speak to an independent mortgage broker to help