What should I do? Divorce

[Flowerstone]

Does anyone have any advice?
I am a mother of 3 with a part time job. My husband and I have decided to divorce.
However, I’m a bit stumped with where to go once our house has sold.
I will have roughly £60k in cash from equity following the house sale which means I won’t qualify for social housing.
However, I won’t be able to buy a house with my salary or pass an affordability check due to having 3 kids.
I also won’t be able to claim university credit as I will have over £16k in savings.
I will receive child maintenance from my ex however this still won’t be substantial to raise 3 kids.
My only option is to rent but this will eat into my savings and make it impossible to eventually buy my own home.
Can anyone think of alternatives??

What are the assets and what is the split?
age of children and salaries

have you gotten legal advice

Split is 50/50 and children are 14, 12 and 5.
Im booked in with a solicitor next week.
My salary is £15,400 PTE his is £60k
He has lots of assets (£1mill pension), company shares and he’s invested in a lot of crypto but he has told me things will turn nasty if I go for his pension

Things will turn nasty, will they?

Threatening type of chap, is he?

I'd talk to your solicitor about all this. Your ex can make threats all he likes and be unpleasant but hopefully any settlement will be fair.

You will be entitled to a pension sharing order and potentially spousal maintenance on top of child maintenance given his salary is a lot higher than yours.
ignore his threats.

Well he sounds like a charmer, no wonder you're divorcing him. Let him fling his threats around and get a good solicitor who will get you what you are legally entitled to.

Depends where you are in the country.....shared ownership ?

You'll get your share from the sale of the family home (I'd suggest 60/40 is a fairer split with 3 children)

maintenance for the children,

possibly spousal maintenance,

a % of his pension

plus benefits of some description if you continue to work part time (UC ? if you choose shared ownership and therefore have less than £16k savings),

child benefit

Does anyone have experience of how expensive solicitors can get if my husband was to contest a legal claim?
He’s said he would quit his job if I tried to get anything more than 50% of the equity in the house.

Right so this is far from amicable - your split of 60k equity is a very small portion of assets.

His pension will still exist if he quits as will the crypto and savings, you need a 50/50 split of it all

all quitting his job will achieve is him not paying maintenance on you and far more negative implications for him so call his bluff.

get legal advice and a 50/50 asset split of everything.

Have a look at this

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/sorting-out-money/help-with-legal-fees-when-you-separate/

Try and get these threats in writing. Him quitting his job won’t necessarily achieve anything as the court may well decide to give you a greater share of the house. Tell him that.

it can get expensive if acrimonious. There’s a company called LawHive that’s good - they match you with a solicitor according to your needs and it’s a lot cheaper and quicker than physically going to a high street firm.

Also this is helpful , I think

www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/getting-help-and-advice/divorce-and-separation-advice/legal-aid-and-other-help-if-you-cant-afford-divorce-or-separation-fees

Thank you, this all really appreciated. I wasn’t aware of the potential for claim to 60/40 either.

Its already nasty, suggest you get nasty too, the only thing that actually matters now is what you walk away with. The rest you have no control over.
Start gathering as much evidence as you can on finances, statements on pensions, investments etc.
File the divorce papers so you are the petitioner. Get form E completed make sure everything goes on it (especially his). Read as much as you can on the process because if you can do a lot of the solicitor stuff yourself (which you can its really not difficult) then you can spend money on a direct access barrister if it goes to court. That will reduce your costs 10x over.
50/50 on everything is the bare minimum, but frankly if you are left with majority care for 3 youngish children Id be aiming for 70/30 particularly with the house. Mersher orders still happen (you stay in house till youngest finishes ft education). Court will want to see you (and primarily the children) securely housed if possible. As well as with equal provision for you both in retirement. Think about how you can maximise your income, maybe you need to retrain or do some post grad, get a 5 year plan in place and start working on it. The labout market is hot at the moment, lots of opportunities, huge skills shortages, so think big. Forget about it being friendly, he's already way past that. And he wont be able to quit his job, he needs to afford to live too, and court will look upon that extremely poorly if he does, so hes a fool if he does it and it wont go in his favour. Ignore the stupid threats and bullying, but document all the evidence you can in writing, and dont hesitate to involve the police if he gets threatening. Take the high road in all your communications, be reasonable polite centre the children and their needs, but stay firm and dont back down.

Ignore his threats, and get what is rightfully yours to raise 3 kids.

I normally do not like people recommending taking ex partners to the cleaners financially but in this case go for it

If you're in south London I can highly recommend a solicitor

A friend of mines solicitor got her 70/30 and her ex kept his pension. Although it wasnt a £million pension pot

I'd say 50/50 of EVERYTHING sounds good

The court will depart from 50/50 if one party has greater needs than the other. Its primary concern will be the security and housing of any children.

I would stop negotiating with your husband, if he keeps putting forward his world view just point out what you can agree on - divorce - remind him neither of you are experts in this area so there will need to be independent advice sought. You both don't want to use up resources in prolonged litigation so hopefully there's an agreement out there somewhere!!!

Is he prepared to go to mediation - this is preferred now prior to Court, it's where someone experienced but neutral lays out the broad expectations of court and collects up all the figures so you both can see how the land lies at the same time. This can be much less adversarial than each of you coming back from a solicitors appt saying 'ive been advised this should happen' .... Etc etc.

From personal experience what I would say is, allow time in between information sharing. People like your husband will have to adjust to a different way of thinking and that can be difficult. He may be used to being the financial decision maker in the family but that won't be how it goes in divorce. You may also be used to acquiescing to his decision making - not appropriate in divorce. Do not sell any assets particularly houses prior to financial agreements deen drawn up with proper advice. The court will decide what is family assets and what is personal not the parties.

Getting a house through the shared ownership scheme might be an option.

Don't listen to you husband. Let the lawyers sort it. I got 70/30 which is much more usual with dependants. Solicitors fees can be taken out of your respective equity shares at the end. So no need to worry about these just now. I paid £1000 on account and the rest when the house was sold and divorce finalised. With regards living arrangements I still privTE rent 10 years LATER There is no chNCE of me getting bCK on property ladder, but I have come to terms with that.

They always threaten to leave their jobs and never do. Solicitors all the way.

How much would you have if you put all assets including pensions down the split that 50:50? That's what your minimum is going to be but you may aim for 60% or even more.
Personally I wouldn't take the house, I would sell that then buy smaller and have some funds. But if you swapped house for pension (you keep house, he keeps pension) then you could claim uc.

You need to get a better paid and full time job at some point fairly soon.

If you do get savings from the house sale they can be ignored for (maybe a year? or six months, not sure) by uc if you say you plan to buy a new house with the proceeds.

Whatever proportion of the equity you get you could perhaps look at shared ownership, therefore you would still have a share in the property and can claim Universal credit and still get some help form UC with the rent part. the equity can be disregarded for 6 months for UC I believe if it is being pout into another property. This would seem the best option if you can't afford to get a mortgage, rather then seeing all the equity go on rent ( or until it drops below 16k ).

Definitely get a solicitor.

In a similar position several years ago, I got a Mesher Order which meant I could stay in house with DC until youngest was 18. I had to pay the mortgage, but as child maintenance didn’t affect tax credits, I managed to make it work by taking on additional work I could do that didn’t affect childcare.

I agreed not to ask for any of his pension, and in return, equity split was 75/25 in my favour.

This is just an example obviously, but just so you can see there are various options available and you really need legal advice.

Good luck.

Get evidence asap of his assets.
He sounds the type to start moving and hiding stuff.

We have an estate agent coming out to value the house tomorrow. He’s just asked if we should just tell them to list it.
I said we need to consider what will happen with the kids first which has just triggered an abusive episode.
Ive told him once I’ve been to a solicitor (I’ve told him booked this week) and took advice then I will have a better idea what to do.
But this has triggered him and I’m now being subject to verbal abuse and accusations of lying about having an appointment booked. He’s telling me ‘everyone’ thinks I’ve lost my mind - meaning his friends and family.
I’m not sure what to do now if he’s going to be stomping around abusive in front of the kids!