Ex DH trying to trick me?

[Chocolate99]

Hello ladies, DH and I split last month after marriage being on last legs for some time. Re finances we wish to avoid solicitors being involved as much as possible but that being said, I have taken legal advice from solicitors and will proceed with them if I don't get a fair deal from ex. He has recently come up with this proposal which makes it sound fair but I think will long term not be in mine and DS interests.

House worth £225, mortgage approx. £19k. so equity of minimum £100k each. He proposes that he cannot afford to buy me out and instead suggests the following

me and DS remain in house paying £120 per month mortgage for next 18 years, we both continue to own 50% each.

He will not pay any maintenance during this time @ £300 per month saving him £65k over 18 years.

After 18 years we can sell or I can buy him out at 50% of whatever the value is then.

he says this is best as wont have upheaval of moving out of family home for DS and minimal mortgage payment for me, close to DS pre school etc, friends.

These are the issues I have with it and do you think this is reasonable?

in 18 years time I will be mid 50s so unable to get new mortgage.
I don't want to be financially linked to him for 18 years.
this deal is dependent on me not claiming any of his pension or making claim for spousal maintenance. if he decides to sell after x amount of years, I am guessing I cannot then claim for police pension and spousal maintenance retrospectively so will be shafted that way.
if I want to buy him out at end of 18 years, at £100k I would need to save £500 per month for next 18 years and obviously the house will be worth more by then so that amount will be insufficient.
I would rather a clean break as he is not good with his finances despite earning more than double what I earn, should he get into financial diffuculty in the future, I may be forced to sell house etc as he has part share.
I will be paying the existing small mortgage, maintaining and improving the house and then he is entitled to 50% does not seem fair deal to me.

all in all I cant see any of this being good beyond staying in family home - what do you think? I will obviously be taking this to solicitor but as he is refusing mediation, I wonder if he will come back with a second offer..

thanks for reading my gibber jabber :)

He is taking the piss and I suspect he knows it. Time to lawyer up and step back.

Linda Myers is very well known in regard to police divorces, if not you could try alison barnes from Barnes Family law she's very good, a bit further away being in wakefield. Im fairly sure that both will offer a free consultation.

There are others i can advise you about, but if he is seeing a solicitor it will almost certainly be on of those on the fed website, (the fed do not employ their own solicitors for this sort of advice, they just act as a sort of matching agency between their members and the firms of solicitors, make sure you ask them if they have seen or are seeing your husband. Obviously they cannot act for both of you! Thats why the fed tend to have two or three different solicitors on their website)

A final point, the CETV although more detailed than the annual pension statement is not sufficient for detailed calculations so if an agreement cannot be reached you will have to pay for an actuarial report on his pension. expect to pay anything between £1000 - £1500. (although this is usually split between both parties as equally he will need one to put his case forward.) Like i say feel free to pm me with any questions as i understand just how confusing this can all be.

Linder myers are struggling not to go bust atm.

That argument about you paying £700 a month mortgage if you don't go for his idea doesn't really add up..At least if you were paying that in a mortgage you would be paying for something that would be 100 percent yours at the end of it. This way he's getting out of his maintenance responsibilities and keeping a stake in the house. Seems a terrible deal to me. I'd hate to be linked to my ex for that length of time as well. He'll do really nicely out of his deal if house prices continue to rise as they have too.

He is completely conning you. You should at the very minimum be taking 100% of the house in return for not claiming on the pension AND getting full maintenance of 15% of salary ON TOP of that.

Get to a solicitor pronto!

Everyone here is very wise. Solicitor now! With the figures you are talking about, you'll be spending 5K or so for a good settlement (in excess of 50% of assets given you have a child, and he has a good pension, and much better earning potential).

Given what you are possibly forsaking here, it will be the best 5K you ever spent. I realise when you earn 1.5K pm, 5K sounds like a fortune - but it could be worth several tens of thousands as investments go.

OK your husband will hate your for the rest of your life. But sounds like that's not much of a change to manage!

Thanks elastamum :)

gethefeck - yes sometimes it is a case of getting in first so there is no conflict of interest i imagine re solicitors. I have read on wikivorce re actuary who will calculate pension actual value but still failing to get my head round cetv, is it the difference between what he would get now if he retired this week versus retiring in 15 years? Seems a bit of a minefiled so can see why you would need a specialist. I am doing divorce paperork myself but am definitely hiring solicitor for the financial proceedings as cant see mediation working with him so have to get miams assessment form to state not suitable for mediation before can proceed with financials.

I am totally with you on that onmyown - would be left in mid 50s with no home and having to get mortgage. I particularly dont want to be tried to him, as he already has issue re control and his money and there is no way i am putting up with that for a swcond longer than i have to. If it was the other way around he certainly wouldnt entertain it.

dollius - I think i need to ask him to get his pension statement from the police and go from there as cant negotiate anything else until i know what we are playing with. No doubt he will be as reluctant as possible to do that but maybe a solicitors letter will hurry him up

Thanks so much lovely ladies

Wellwhoknew - he has already said I will make an enemy for life if I go after any money but hey ho! He doesn't seem to realise that the more he takes the Mickey the more I will go after. He is all out for himself and says he doesn't care if we end up in a bedsit! I agree sometimes a cheaper divorce or fixed deal does not pay dividends in the end, that being said do t want to be in a situation where the only winners are the solicitors. I just keep reminding myself in a year or 2 this will all be better :) thank you

I too am a bitch of the highest order.

Right now, I am wearing that badge with pride.

I have good reasons to.

Chocolate you can't really work out his pension value yourself, honestly, you'll drive yourself mad trying. You need to get the CETV which the pension administrators will provide and your H won't be able to edit it. The CETV will show the full amount that your H has accrued up to today but if you've only been married for 4 years that's the point from which the calculations are normally made when looking at your entitlement. That is where your solicitor will earn his/her money in these negotiations. Don't forget that if you also have a pension pot that will be netted off against his.

In terms of you paying off the mortgage you must bear in mind that interest rates have to go up at some stage so any 'deal' that you contemplate accepting needs to bear in mind this risk as I think's it's pretty likely over 18 years.

Please make sure you use your solicitor - they will protect you and based on his 'offer' your solicitor will earn his/her money...

I'd sell up now, go for a straight 50:50 split on house and pension rights, seek child maintenance and move on....

My XH was very slow in coming up with his CETVs and relevant paperwork. My solicitor had to apply to court for a timetable which meant XH had to cough up the information by a certain time otherwise he'd have been in contempt of court. He started off wanting to be reasonable too - it didn't last. That said, when he realised he was going to have to cough up we did do the big chunk of negotiating ourselves to save on solicitor costs but by then he had nothing to hide. Of course, the outcome was blessed by my solicitor before I officially agreed to our deal.

Only skim read the thread - but no agreement that purports to bar you from going to the CSA is valid, so the deal is a dead duck just because it relies on this. Or you could agree to it and still get your CSA maintenance afterwards of course

You do need advice, in the end I took a clean break giving up my rights to his shitty pension and spousal maintenance ( we have a disabled child) in order to take a house with a lot of equity in and the savings pot, releasing him from the mortgage. I still had to use the CSA for maintenance....but that ticks along quite nicely, it's not protected of course if the CSA changes....but worse case scenario is I can move and downsize. So it's not ideal, but there was no way I was going to maintain a house for years and then hand over half of it! But you must get proper advice, it will be worth every penny. Be firm though, solicitors love to trot you off to court, and it may be that you can beat this out via financial mediation which will be far far cheaper x