Would I be entitled to anything?

[Pinkfox]

Am currently going through a difficult time in our marriage, we are trying to work on it, but I am not sure if our intentions for this are right or if we can make things work.

One of my reasons for staying basically is we have 2 children and I do not want to lose our home. Our home is fundamental to creating stability and security for the children.

Also I owned my own home which I sold to enable us to buy a house together. With the money I was able to pay off the mortgage on that house and put down £10k deposit on our current home. There was money left over which we used to buy new things for our new home and some money was used to buy a brand new car. I couldnt drive at the time so the car was for him (he traded his clapped out car in for £1k towards it!) - although we made a decision to buy a decent sized car for possible future family.

We both work, we pay a set amount into a joint account which pays the mortgage and all bills.

If we were to split, what would my rights, if any, be?? I wouldnt want to sell the house and start again somewhere else, this is the childrens HOME.

I wouldnt be able to pay the mortgage AND all the bills by myself, we struggle now to pay everything with two of us paying.

Bumping for you.

Thanks for bumping, im bumping too, can anybody offer wise words please

sorry that you are going through a difficult time. Firstly, you say you are trying to work it out and I wonder if you've tried counselling (ie Relate or similar) or perhaps mediation? If you ultimately decide it is over then mediators can be really helpful in assisting you resolving various issues in your marriage, ie the children (contact/residence etc) and the financial aspects of the breakdown of your marriage.

I can understand your wish to retain the stability for your children and therefore perhaps not ending it but with respect, that is not a good enough reason to stay in an unhappy marriage. I've seen many people stay in unhappy marriages for years and years and only when the children had grown up and left home did they do something about it. Quite a few of them subsequently regretted their 'wasted years'.

If you were to separate/divorce then the starting point would be that you and the children would need to be adequately housed. Assuming that you are not 'overhoused' ie you and two children in a 2/3 bed house then hopefully you would be able to stay in the former matrimonial home (FMH). If both kids same sex/similar ages then potentially it could be argued that they could share a room and you would therefore only need a 2 bed house. If a boy and girl or big age gap then you could reasonably be expected to stay in a 3 bed. If you have 'surplus' rooms, then potentially your DH could have a case to say you are overhoused and the FMH should be sold and a smaller/cheaper house purchased for you and the kids to live in.
The starting point is usually an equal division of matrimonial assets but obviously you would almost certainly need more than half to re-house you and kids/stay where you are. Other calculations would need to be done, ie take into account the fact that you'd put the deposit down on the FMH from the sale of your previous property and also take into account any other assest, such as savings and your husband's pension if any (sometimes this can be a very substantial asset in the marriage).

If it is not viable financially to sell and share the equity or for you to buy your DH out now (which is quite often the case) then a variety of different options are available. A quite common one is a 'mesher type order' (named after the case where it first came about. Basically, this type of financial order would allow you to remain in the house with the children (or in a further propery if you sell the FMH and downgrade). You would then be able to remain in the house with the children until a certain trigger event at which point the house would be sold and the proceeds could be divided as agreed/Ordered by the Court, ie 50/50 60/40 70/30 depending on the arrangement reached following calculations ref the other matrimonial assets/his pension etc.
Alternatively, if you didn't want to sell then, you could hopefully buy out his interests.
The usual 'trigger' events are the youngest child reaching 16/17/18 (whatever agreed/Ordered)
Your voluntary sale of the property
Your death
Your remarriage (and sometimes cohabitation in excess of 6 months although not all District Judges will include this as a trigger event and it varies from Court to Court)

Sometimes it is Ordered that the husband pay to the wife spousal maintenance. This is often paid in circumstances where the wife is unable to work (or can only work part-time on a low income) due to the ages of the children or where she needs to re-train as she had previously given up her career to care for the children. Spousal maintenance can be ordered to be paid for a limited period of time, anything from 1 to 4/5 years to allow the wife to get back on her feet financially. This would then assist with the payment of the mortgage and other bills and of course there would be child maintenance on top of this.
Ideally, you and your DH would agree this but if not, you'd need to think about an application to the Maintenance Enforcement Commission (formerly the CSA) Not sure what their new assessment criteria is as they only replaced the CSA in November last year but with the CSA, the rate was 20% of the non resident parents net income for 2 children (gross income less tax, NI and pension contributions)

I would suggest that you consider the counselling/mediation route and if that doesn't work, then see a family lawyer with regards to your situation. If you are not working or have a low income you should be eligible for public funding (legal aid) so make sure you go to a firm of solicitors that has a legal aid franchise.

Good luck x

Thank you for replying, nothing is ever easy or straight forward eh!

I work part time, mainly because otherwise I would be working full time to enable us to afford childcare, therefore basically working to pay someone else to look after my children - which I didnt want to do, so I now work part time. This enables me to stay in the workplace with a view to doing more hours in the future. It also means I get to spend lots of time with DC but (cant have everything) my income is now less than half.

We have a joint account which the bills go from, we have a set amount which we each pay into it and I dont know whether he would continue to do this if we split (it works out less than £100 per week).

My DC are under 5yo, a boy and girl, so each have a bedroom, our home has 3 bedrooms, so not even like we can continue to co-habit as there is no spare bedroom. We continue to share a bedroom and a bed although we dont even say "goodnight" to each other - not through falling out or anything, we just dont!

I suppose I would need to get info from a sol to really get an idea of any rights (if any). I just feel bad thinking about it when we havent split, I just cant help thinking its simply a matter of time, I certainly wont spend another Christmas being as unhappy as the last one, this year is pretty much make or break.

We get along fine, but I know during talks we had 2-3 weeks ago, he gets angry and says things in the heat of the moment, mainly he was saying we have to sell the house, so I think he has had similar thoughts, I dont know.

He also says things have not been right for "a long time", around 4-5 years, so lord knows why he is even still around or why we havent had these talks before??? I went out for a couple of hours and when I got back he was fine, as if nothing had been said earlier??? I had to bring up the situation again otherwise it gets left, head in sand methinks!!

For now, its simply a case of waiting and seeing, but I have a sinking feeling things will just do downhill from here

Hi Pinkfox,
If/when you split your H will have to pay some sort of financial support, even if only child maintenance initially so please try not to worry about the finances. If he gets really difficult and won't pay, then your best course of action would be go go via the County (divorce) Courts and apply for maintenance pending suit (an interim type of maintenance) at the same time as issuing divorce proceedings. Usually, it can take up to 12 months (if not longer) for the anciallary relief (financial aspects of divorce) to be resolved if it goes via the Courts as potentially there are up to 3 Court hearings if matters are not settled in advance or along the way. With interim maintenance applications, these are made in circumstances when you simply cannot wait until the outcome of a 'normal' anciallary relief application.

You should not feel bad about forward thinking as clearly you need to have some reassurance on the position for you and the children should you separate.

From what you've said about your children, you are not 'overhoused' therefore hopefully you will be able to stay in the FMH which will obviously be better for the children (and you)
With regards to spousal (interim maintenance for you) as you are only working part time hopefully this would be an option. It is very common for the wife/mother to be working only part time as like you say, the childcare costs are often more than you'd earn.
I would advise you to start collating as much information as you can with regards to your financial situation so that if you should decide to go ahead with a divorce/see a solicitor, you will have a lot of information available. Make sure you keep copies of bank statements, mortgage statements etc and also payslips/P60 (if you can get copies of his an his P60 then that would be really helpful in the future. Do you know whether he has a pension? If so, try to find out as much about that as possible.
A valuation of the FMH would be useful, either a 'guesstimate' ie by looking at similar properties in the local paper or if you can, get a formal valuation (when he is not around) from a local estate agents but don't tell them its potentially with regards to divorce/separation.

It is clear that you cannot carry on the way you are so you really do need to do something rather than just continue drifting. Have you raised the issue of counselling/mediation with him? If you think it is over then mediation could be very useful as like I said earlier, the mediator(s) will assist you in reaching an agreement with regards to the children/finances etc.

Good luck, and if there is anything else you need to ask just shout. (I'm a few hours ahead of you so just thinking about a bath & bed now but I'll check tomorrow morning x

I would see a solicitor.