Please help me get some perspective on what’s morally right.
First of all my brother is in another country so UK laws don’t apply. They want an amicable divorce, without even a solicitor involved , so are trying to go on what’s fair.
So, they got married 3 years ago. Before getting married each had their own flat (I think my brother owned his mortgage free and she was/is still paying towards hers). After getting married they decided to move to a different town and put both flats on the market. My brother’s sold and hers didn’t. They bought a family house in this new town with the money from my brother’s flat and my parent’s help. Her contribution in terms of money was none. Her flat is currently rented and she keeps the rent money.
Where they live the default agreement by law is that whatever you acquire after getting married is split 50/50, whatever you owned before is kept as yours. In their case it appears that my brother can still claim the house as although it was bought after getting married it was with money from a house that he owned before, although we’re not 100% sure on this.
So, now they’re getting divorced. They have a 2 yo dd. She’s leaving the family house (her choice, she doesn’t like it) and renting near by. They are going to do almost shared custody – she gets 3 days a week, my brother 2. They alternate weekends.
They agreed that my brother would pay half the nursery plus some maintenance. He will also pay her 12000 euros split over 2 years for the money she invested in the house (they did some work on it). Although they’ve worked out that the money spent was 14000 euros, so effectively her contribution was just 7000. My brother was happy with this arrangement. Now after talking to her parents and some friends she is saying that she has to pay rent and leave the family home so he needs to pay more and raised it to 20000 euros over just under 4 years. My brother wants to keep it friendly and most of all wants to keep the shared custody (which he won’t get if it’s up to a judge to decide) so he’s agreeing to this as well, but now I’m thinking it is a bit much…
What do you all think? Some outside perspective would be really useful!
TIA