Buying out

[Lis667]

Me and husband are divorcing. And I’m going to buy him out as I can afford the mortgage on my own. Before we bought our house and before we got married, me and my husband lived in a property that my dad owned. It was an £80k mortage, he put down £40k then re mortgaged his own house for the other £40k. Which we paid him the monthly payments for. (I paid abit more as I had my business downstairs in this property and we lived in the flat above) he then sold it for £150k. He paid off his remaining bit of the mortage, which left around £50k which he let us keep. This money has always been in my account. After we spent some on our house and holidays etc, I decided to split what was left giving us £15k each and sent it to his bank. Can I now not include that in the funds to buy him out? We never would have had that money if it weren’t for my dad, but not sure if it’s classed as his because we are married. Any help would be appreciated

You gave him the money before speaking to a solicitor and before a financial settlement was drawn up? If so that was very foolish of you. Go and see a solicitor with receipts.

I'm not sure I fully understand you. Are you saying you had £15k left once your father had sold his property etc etc etc. If so, then as you are married, 50% of that money is your husbands. In fact, all assets are deemed to be 50/50. So if you want to buy your husband out I would say only £7.5k of that money is yours.

Edit. Reading your post again are you saying you gave your husband £15k and you kept £15k. If that is the case then you can use your £15k however you like, but I'd say the other £15k is your husbands. However, in a divorce all assets are initially split 50/50 and then more or less might be attributed to each party depending on need etc. Do you have any other assets ? Pensions ?

On a slightly different note - you might think you can "afford" the mortgage but in reality only your mortgage lender can tell you that, based on their affordability rules. General rule of thumb is around 4.5x income, but some lenders will grant you more, some less.

Yes but this was before we were separating, I never thought this would happen.