Been to see another solicitor

[Lemmingswife]

It was a man this time & he seemed quite good. He had been in the job for 30 years.
He asked all my details & then asked a little about why we were thinking of divorce.
I told him a little about H's temper & control problems & how I have tried everything to save our marriage, but nothing seems to change him for long & I cannot take much more. I also mentioned him leaving our DS's in the house to come spying on me.
He said that it sounds like I would have good reasons to divorce him for unreasonable behaviour & that this alongside adultry, are treated different to other cases & normally result in a far quicker divorce.
I explained the house situation & how H has told me that I will not have enough money to buy a property, so will have to rent.
He said "Oh & I wonder why he is telling you this?!"
He told me that he was very wrong there & that first consideration always goes to any minors up until the age of 18. He said that pushing me into rental is not on, as there is no security with renting & it is NOT in the best interest of the children.
He also said that I would stand more chance of benefits if I was not renting.
He said that if I cannot stay in the house, I would be advised to sell it & buy something with the equity. (I have come away a little unsure as to how I would do this, as I only work 20 hours a week & am not on fantastic money)
He did say that normally the wife would get more than 50% & it was quite likely in our case, as H earns so much more than me & I have the children to take care of.
I told him about H being a nightmare to get out of the house & he said best to keep it sweet for the moment.
Will post more later...have someone at the door!

Can i ask more about the equity as i am in this position and cant see a solicitor for a couple of weeks. Did he say that you get more equity than him because of your son?

Not sure about keeping it sweet but this sounds like he sorted quite a lot for you.

Did you tell him all about the abuse?

Hi, me again. You might find it in your interest to keep your house on for the time being - for reasons I've stated before. I think you might find yourself in a much more financially stable position if you hold on to it. Check this with your solicitor though.

Re. unreasonable behaviour, you will probably be asked to produce evidence of this - in the form of a list of examples, with dates and a brief explanation of what happened. There do not need to be witnesses. You could get to work on that sooner rather than later, and produce it at your next meeting. Keep it short though, as they usually charge by the page for re-working documents.

Finally, there were some recent cases where wives were given a more generous settlement because they were not at fault in the separation. If your H has been adulterous as well as abusive, then you may be advised to cite these as reasons for divorce (as opposed to incompatibility - for which I believe you have to have a fairly long separation period before applying for a divorce).

Be warned that the celebrity divorces we see in the media - whereby Brod leaves Jan to remarry Angela (names have been changed to protect the innocent) within about 6 months - just do not happen over here. So be prepared to dig in for a long battle. Get business like and try to switch off your emotions when dealing with the legal eagles - it will cost you less.

Good luck.

Jellyjelly, sorry to be rather negative, but, as you and your ex were not married, it is unlikely that you will be looking at a similar outcome to LW.

You need to look at how the house is held, i.e. joint tenants or tenants in common, how it was purchased, e.g. who provided the deposit, who has paid the mortgage, etc. You will not have the option of the court deciding who should have what as you will not be going through divorce proceedings. I suggest you seek legal advice regarding your position. Do you have a copy of your deeds? Do you know whose name/s is/are on the deeds?

It is a joint mortgage he has been paying it as such because althought i worked it was a very low wage and i have been bringing up our son. It is such a bugger as we should be married he bailed 2 weeks before the wedding or should i say i called it off because of his affair.

He paid 4k i believe and i paid 3k moved in the same date and both names should be on the deeds.

Smellen I have got divorced witin 6 months. All is not settled re finance and the kids but I divorced him on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour (a 16 page affadavit with everything in it!) and on the grounds of adultery.

The reason to wait and see what the solicitor says to incude is that some of it may be neded if there are any residency contact issues and it is wise to put them in the main suit as well. I included every last detail I could think of and I am glad I did. So my advice would be to write everything down Lw and see what your solicitor wants to include.

Sorry - couldn't get back on last night, as my last guest didn't leave until late, by which time I was far too tired & had far too much wine in my system to post!
The solicitor told me that I was best to keep it sweet for the time being re H being stubborn about moving out.
He said that to get him removed I would have to have been physically hurt by him & have evidence that he beat me black & blue.
He advised me not to discuss any of what he said to me with H, as he can start to use it to get things to go his way with his solicitor.
He told me that he wasn't sure that he advised mediation, as he feels that the wife often gets around 52% out of it & he thinks they should get much more, but that it does cut down the court case.
He wasn't sure whether I would qualify for legal aid, but told me that the problem with legal aid is that you pay it back + interest, so there is a sting in the tail.
He said the divorce would probably end up costing me around £5000!
GF, I told him about some of the abuse, but not stacks, as he said he got the gist that he was controlling & had problems with his temper and didn't need too much detail of all events.
He was doing most of the talking yesterday, I think he wanted to fit as much into the time I had with him as possible.
I will start writing that list though.

jellyjelly, I would be entitled to more equity due to the fact that I have the children & he earns far more money than me.

WEll done LW - or LX as i feel more like calling you!
It sounds as if this solicitor will do you a good job, and the 'unreasonable beahviour' sounds good. There is planty of evidence to back that up -and from the other agencies who have been involved.

Really sory that there is no quick fix to his sitting in the house - we'll have to hope his pride takes over.

Also, what was his view on the house actually being on the market? It sounds as if he was sayiing hold off.....

I think Smellen and Freckle are right - this is the time to separate the 'business' side of this from your emotionla responses, if you can. Sort of like the threads, really! Have the business / legal side running in parallel.

He said that it is often better if we are in the house, but as our house is large & we have a high mortgage, the courts may advise that it is sold & that I find somewhere smaller.
He said that I should be looking to buy something smaller using the equity. I am still kind of confused as to how I can manage this on my wage though.

My solicitor has found me a financial advisor who is sorting it all out for me LW! It takes some of the pain out of it and stops me from having to talk about my rubbish credit rating etc etc. Also my income is low but apparently I will still get some money!

Apparantly there is normally a 2 year seperation period before you get the divorce.
I cannot include adultry, as he was unfaithful to me before we got married. I am not aware of any incidents of this since we married.

Is your divorce still going through, GF?
Apologies if you have already told me the answer to this before, I don't hold too much in this head of mine atm!

Are you still in the house you lived in with H, GF?

you can get a quick divorce for unreasonable behavior (without the 2 yr separation) and we all know that there has been plenty of that. Go through all your old posts to dog your memory and then write it all down. then as glitter said your solicitor can decide what to include in tha papers

I am in the middle of proceedings about the kids and the finance LW. I am divorced!!!!!! Hurrah. I thought I would be sad but feel nothing but huge relief. It is all very bitter and high conflict and so far teh X hs insisted on the sale of the house but wants to keep me in the area and so has prevented me moving. I cannot really talk about it as we go to court on the 19th and I dont want him to know how I am feeling or what is giong on but you are welcome to email me at [email protected].

The least I can say is that he has continued to behave through the courts as he did in our marriage and I would be very very much tougher at the beginning now than I was. He has used the judicial system to bully and intimidate me and I have lost the opportunity to rant at the moment. As soon as the 19th is over I will start a thread!

Sorry forgot to say have just sold the house so am looking to move wihtin a limited area in teh next ten weeks or so! It is not really what I wanted to happen but I am making the best of it!

LW - surely H would be required to contribute to a mortgage or make payments to you that you can use for the house, as it will be for a house for the boys to live in?

I understand the benefit of a 'softly softly' approach for now, but surely the solicitor doesn't think you would have to endure H in the house for the process of a divorce lasting 2 years??!!

It does sound a very good plan to divorce him for unreasonable beahviour. There will be so much evidence for that from HV, SS etc.

But what did he think about having the house on the market right now? Did he say what would happen to the money if it sells in the next couple of months? And hard for you to start looking for a house unless you know how much you can spend?

But in some ways it would be quite a forward-looking thing to do, to find a nice little home for you and the boys, wouldn't it?

LW you only need evidence if he contests the divorce which he may well not. If he does not then he will probably have to pay the costs in any case.

Oh no, I could never be expected to have H around until we were divorced! What a thought!!
I think he meant play it softly for now. I am hoping that he will move out when his friend returns in 9 days, but if he does start to mess me about again, I will go back to solicitor & see if there is anything I can do. There must be some way of getting him to leave without him beating me! Maybe there isn't though & if this is the case, I will have to find some way of doing it on my own.
The last solicitor I saw, mentioned something about him maybe having to put his name on the mortgage of any house I bought.
He said that H was wrong in thinking that he would bung me half of the money made from the equity & expect me to rent. He said I would more than likely get more than 50% & that H would not get his share until either DS2 reaches 18, or I was to marry again.
He didn't seem too alarmed about the house being on the market right now, but didn't really make it that clear as to what would happen if it sold right away. He just said that I must start looking at what I could afford with the equity.
I couldn't get much of a word in at times tbh! Think he wanted to cover as much as possible in the little amount of time we had.
Will probably have to go back, as there was so much to try & take in & I am still quite confised about lots of things.
He kept mentioning a Misha order(?)

Was told if I divorced him for unreasonable behaviour it would go through quicker.

I think he meant a mesher order. This is where the non-resident parent keeps an interest in the property until a certain time (as you said, e.g. DS2 reaches 18 or leaves full-time education, whichever is later, or you remarry). When that event occurs, you would either have to pay him his share, or sell the house in order to obtain the funds.

Re the divorce, petitioning on the basis of 2 years' separation is really only appropriate where both parties agree and you have no other grounds. You clearly have sufficient evidence of his unreasonable behaviour to be able to petition on that basis.

LW based on experience of family members etc who have been divorced...

You could get up to 100% of the equity, especially if you have any other assets.

Some mortgage lenders will include maintenance payments in your income for a mortgage but I think you have to have been receiving them for a while & they have to be paid either through CSA or a court order, so you should be able to get a mortgage if you need one.

HTH

I meant if you have other assets which you DH could have as part of his share.

Thank you both for the info.
Yes, Freckle, that is the one. I had never heard of a mesher order before, but he kept bringing it up.
I started jotting bits down, but couldn't keep track of what he was saying & write at the same time, so stopped.
I will arrange to go back & see him. He seemed to go into a lot more detail than the original solicitor that I saw.
It is all so much to try & take in.