Split with ex he's being an arse over money

[TwoHoots74]

I split amicably with my ex beginning of the year. We're still living together due to lockdown. We have to sell the family home. We spoke earlier about money and I said I would like 60%. We have a son together. We aren't married.

I've supported good career for 16 years and work part time. Due to the nature of shift patterns I'll never be able to work full time while our son is at school. He got really angry today and said I can't have 60%. It's unfair. My income is a third of his. I'm going to have our son 5 days out of 7. My wages alone won't cover rent but the equity will help me survive.

I won't get benefits help as I will have too much equity. I'm not being grabby. I just feel it's unfair. He now won't speak to me at all. He has a pension and I'm named beneficiary so don't know whether to say I'm entitled to that as I'm named.

Yep, you have a claim on his pension, so an offer to forgo that for a greater proportion of the house might be a way forward. You're not being unreasonable. In fact, you're possibly being a bit too reasonable. I'd stop discussing it with him until you get proper legal advice.

I would seek legal advice and asap before deciding on anything further.

Are you on the deeds? Are you joint tenants or tenants in common?

As you aren’t married you’ll have no claim on his pension I’m afraid. If you’re not on the deeds it will be very difficult to claim on the house. You will be entitled to child maintenance from him though.

Why would she be entitled to his pension if they are not married?

Op you would still get some benefits with equity/savings so check that out.

Oh just saw you are named on the pension. Maybe you are entitled. You will need legal advice.

Get legal advice as to a financial settlement but you should be aware that Due to the nature of shift patterns I'll never be able to work full time while our son is at school is not an acceptable excuse in the eyes of the law . You will be expected to work even if that means changing your job or using child minding.

I do work and I want to work more. Our son is to old for childminder but not old enough to be left all day.

Yes my name is on the house deeds.

You don't have a claim on his pension as you're not married. Being named as a beneficiary means that on his death you may have received some death benefits. A beneficiary can be changed at any point in time so he could change this now. Being named as a beneficiary does not mean if you split up you can take some of his pension.

If you were married it would have been different.

Oh sorry, missed the not married bit.

He knows I will struggle financially. Makes me sick I've supported him for years. This isn't for me. It's about our son and putting a roof over his head. I've no lifestyle to maintain so I'm not being greedy

You can still claim benefits.

It doesn’t matter if you own a house, they won’t pay anything towards the mortgage but you can still claim other stuff:

If the house sales then you might not be able to claim for a month or two while you have the equity in your account but if you buy something else then the money is gone again and you can claim again

Can you tell him if he doesn’t give you 60% then he will need to have his son 50:50 so you can also work full time ?

3 days one week and 4 the other.... not your problem that he has to sort out childcare on his days?

You will get benefits if you use the equity to buy another house. It would be helpful if you could say whether you are named on the house deeds as a joint owner.

As you are not married then pensions are not considered joint assets.

What does the extra 10% represent in £?

Have you agreed CMS payements at standard amount or above? Re a job, if your son is young it might seem challenging to work full time but realistically you are likely to have to increase hours as he gets older.

You aren't entitled to anything much as you aren't married. Definitely not the pension. If you stall on selling the house (terrible market!) you won't end up with the problem of equity becoming savings and pushing you out of uc. You can make a claim for uc while you are still living together but separated as well, and there used to be a rule about money from house sale being disregarded for so many months anyway so you could see if that applies to uc. Then, it sounds like you will be renting? Can't you afford to buy somewhere else? Once your savings are below 16k you might get more uc towards your rent so that might help.
Sorry
He's being a prick. They often are.

I echo the advice of PP - get legal advice. As you are not married you have fewer rights. Any court will put the needs of your DC above those of your ex or you. There are options which is why you need legal advice. Good Luck

You need actual legal advice, rather than unqualified people on Mumsnet telling what your "probably" entitled to, or how they think the law should work!

Pls get legal advice, don't post on here about such an important topic!!!

The legal advice I had in your situation was that it was a legal 50/50 split and nothing else. One issue I had was all the debts were in my name. He left me with them all. The equity swallowed the lot so I ended up on benefits and got nothing

My DC are named 50/50 beneficiaries on my pension but this is for death benefits only and I can change this right now if I wanted to, they have no ‘claim’ to it

You need some proper legal advice

As you're not married you will only be entitled to 50% of your jointly owned house (assuming you own as joint tenants not tenants in common with an uneven split).

You won't be entitled to his other personal assets including pension. Being "named" on it means only that if he dies before retirement you will get some payout from it. You can't take any value while he is still alive and he can (and I expect will) change his named beneficiary now you're splitting.

If you have your son more days/nights than he does then he'll need to pay you maintenance or vice versa.

You may be entitled to some benefits as pp said.

I'm afraid that's likely to be your lot unless he chooses to be more generous. You would be better off if you had been married but that's not very helpful now, I appreciate.

What legal advice do you think there will be?

You need legal advice.

Everyone's situation is different - and on that basis you can't predict what a solicitor will say because the advice will depend on your individual circumstances.

See a solicitor.