can I force H to leave the house?

[darkchocolates]

married for over 20 years. DC - all have SN, one of which will never be independent and always need 24/7 care. H is financially and emotionally abusive. I don't wanna go into the details but he is not a nice person.
He earns well. I earn a lot less as I can only work reduced hours as I am the primary carer for our DC. I provide about 70-80h care for them on top. He has next to no involvement and does provide zero practical support. he also is refusing to share his income now leaving me struggling to pay the bills from my part time pay (and PIP and child benefit). I want him to leave but he is refusing. He claims I will not get rh house in case of a divorce as he paid in a lot more to the mortgage (we are mortgage free). he expects me and the DC to move out. We have no family and friends and nowhere to go and my salary is too low to pass the affordability treshold. Plus it's a nice house and the DC's home. He just needs a man cave. Why should he have the house?

I haven't seen a solicitor yet but just wanted to get a rough idea what would happen if I file for divorce. DC are 15 and 17. Older one will never fly the nest as severely disabled. There is a good chance that the younger one will be able to become independent at some point. Younger DC's mental health is very poor right now also largely due to H. I need him gone. How can I achieve this quickest if he is refusing to leave?

Contact Women's Aid. I believe if he is refusing to financially support his children this would constitute financial abuse. You may (I'm no expert) be able to get him to leave on the grounds of abuse. It sounds as though you are married, in which case you are entitled to some of the money he earns as it's a marital asset.
Is there a joint account? I assume not.

Anyway because he wants to keep you in your place he will spin you a web of lies. You are entitled to more than he's willing to admit, that's for sure, so get advice.
Women's Aid first then probably a solicitor. And don't tell him what you're doing.

Good luck @darkchocolates

thank you. yes, married and all accounts separate.

A friend was told by her STBXH that she wasn't entitled to all sorts of things in the event of their divorce because he had paid most while she brought up the children. In court, she was awarded the house (with the children in their mid-teens), half his public sector pension plus £100,000. Good luck.

You would be entitled to a % of the house equity.

It's very unlikely you'd be awarded the whole house unless he is a very high earner - over 150k.

It's likely you'd be awarded minimum 50% of the house. You'd be required to either buy him out of his %, or if you can't the house would be sold and the proceeds split.

i wouldn't be able to buy him out as I am mainly relying on carers allowance with a few £ earned on top. I couldn't get a mortgage to buy a house as my earnings are too low and zero change to I increase working hours. I suppose in the case if a divorce I would get half of the equity of the house, would have to live on it as it would be too much quality for UC whilst caring round the clock for both DC whilst he is carrying on with his carefree life.

can I force him to take the DC 50/50? he would have to drastically reduce his working hours but it would enable me to work more.

You need to deal with this quickly because your DC won’t be minors for much longer. Hopefully a legal specialist will come on here to tell you that where adult DC have special needs , a parents obligation to remain responsible for them continues into adulthood, which will affect what you can claim in terms of needs and percentages of assets, but personally I don’t know if that’s the case and you need to find out pronto!
There’s no substitute for specialist legal advice, don’t be fobbed off with a trainee in a non-specialist firm.

I’m not sure this is the case. It will depend how much you both have in other assets.

its based on the needs of the children - and it sounds like your kids have needs that will last for years. He needs to be able to provide for them long term. In addition, you are not in a position to earn anything because of the caring responsibilities.

OP- it’s a long marriage, you care for kids 24/7, it also sounds like it’s infeasible for him to have them 50/50.

you would be looking at 70% of house - as a minimum I reckon.

you need to speak to a solicitor asap.

It is my understanding that you could remain in the house until the lat DC is 18 at least, I am not sure if disability affects this but would guess it would be a positive thing. Your partner would have to contribute to children via maintenance unless he had them 50% or more of the time. Get some legal advice and good luck.

He’d get a bigger share of the house as you’d both need to have a place to have the kids. Legally, judges look to parity in housing. It’s not fair to have one person in a palace and the other in a
1 bed.

is 50/50 best for your kids though? It sounds like they might not get the care they need? He might come to realisation that it’s more sensible for him to remain working full time and contributing financially.

until 18 is of no use to me. At least not if he doesn't take them 50/50 which I know he won't. It will be 100% me.

will see if I get time free 30 min appointments with some solicitors to get an idea. looks like disability and long term caring commitment makes it a lot more complicated.

What generally happens to the pension? I have a tiny one (private sector) but H is in the public sector and his will be substantial. am I likely to be entitled to some of it? In the end, he earned that ob my back by refusing to help with the DC and being able to advance his career.

is 50/50 best for your kids though? It sounds like they might not get the care they need? He might come to realisation that it’s more sensible for him to remain working full time and contributing financially.

absolutely not but without his significant financial support I will need to ramp up my working hours and this will be impossible whilst being the main/sole carer for such high needs DC. I am also a bit egoistic. I also deserve a life and currently have none as all hours are taking up with caring, some working, limited excess to money and being socially completely isolated (whilst he goes on long solo holidays without us).

Unfortunately, he cannot be forced to leave the house unless there is sufficient evidence for abuse to get a legal restraint. Take the default position as you would get a 50:50 share of all assets. You may be awarded more but don’t count on that for now. The house, the pensions if any and half of all savings. If he is a high earner there would be plenty. It sounds as if you have little in the way of assets. Would this enable you to house DC adequately. Again unfortunately, there is no way of forcing any contact with DC and it doesn’t sound like he would be willing.

OP, any chance of any sort of supported living for the severely disabled DC?

Pensions: count as part of the assets to divide, and can be worth hundreds of thousands in a high paid public sector job.

Key options: you get some of the pension (i.e. you become a scheme member with a proportion of his value), or you trade off some value against other assets like the house.

It's not unknown for someone to get the house on the basis of not having a pension share, but that depends on house value of course.

I'm sorry this sounds very difficult, and with the SEN issue, you need proper legal advice about what you might push for and expect to get in a divorce.

Shorter term, I don't see how you can force him to leave a house he's paid for. Yes you might be being financially abused, but it's less clear cut than some cases. If the mortgage is paid off, what bills are you having to cover and what is he covering? Are all the household bills in your name? So he's literally paying for nothing at all except his own food? Of course you'd still be having to do that if you forced him out, so that doesn't seem like the solution, or rather it doesn't seem like the bills are the main problem ie if he took over some bills, wouldn't you still want him to leave?

As a PP said, the best thing is to get moving on this before the DC are over 18. It's unlikely you'll get the house unless you can buy him out, which isn't likely either. And going for the 50/50 seems unlikely too although I understand why you say it. But if he was the kind who could be taught that lesson, you wouldn't be in this situation. More likely that the house would be sold and you'd have to use your equity to support you until it ran out and then see what's possible with income and benefits. But only a lawyer can give you a full steer.

You can go to court to get him excluded from the home

Yes, you would be entitled to a significant share of his public sector pension. You could use that as leverage to get more or even all of the house.
EG 20 years public sector at valuation of say 500k minus your tiny pension of say 20k = 480k = 240k each (doesn’t matter if he paid all or most of mortgage)
House value 500k divided by 2 = 250k each
If you pm me a rough value of your house and his salary details, both from 20 years ago and now, plus the value of your pension, I can do a very approx calculation. I would need to make some assumptions such as linear salary progression.

He pays gas/electric (no idea how much), I pay council tax, water, phone, internet, home insurance. I recon mine are a lot higher than his and with being on carers allowance and a low wage, swallow up most of what I earn. I manage to pay for food, petrol, dinner money for the DC and clothes by using PIP which my oldest receives. Occasionally, I dip into my saving. He does the supermarket shopping from time to time but that is all. He doesn't take the DC out, doesn't pay for school things (uniform, dinner money, trips) ect. You get the picture.

How much is the home worth? Are there properties in the area that you could downsize to with 50% of the current homes value?

Your could get house instead of share of pension. As it's a long marriage and you have been caring you would be entitled to more than 50:50. There are lots of mens rights activitists on these chats so don't be intimidated by them.

I don't have the full pension details but I am pretty sure that his pension is worth much more than the house (house is worth little over 200k). He has hidden all pension paperwork so I don't know the details but he pays in a lot every month (about £400 plus a hefty employer contribution). My pension pot is tiny in comparison (currently about 35k).

If he's paying gas and electric (not cheap these days) and some supermarket shops, then again I don't see a good case for getting him excluded from his home. He should absolutely pay more for the DC and take on more of the bills as the breadwinner, but if you got him to take on, say, the council tax and the water bill, that wouldn't fix what you really want fixing. It does sound like a divorce could mean a deal whereby you got the house in return for not touching his pension, but you'd still likely have to sell it if you can't afford the bills - which you couldn't with the gas etc on top, unless you have a lot of savings.

Hopefully what you made from the house sale (hypothetically), could house you adequately elsewhere and your younger DS would move out in a few years. Your older DS might also have housing options in supported living so you could do more. Good luck with it all.

No-one can tell you the outcome if you go to court, it depends on the judgement of the court after evaluating all the submissions. You need to get legal advice asap. You can't force him to move out if the house is in joint names.

If you are technically separated but living under the same roof you can claim Universal Credit based on your low income - you would need to demonstrate you are living separate lives, down to bedrooms, laundry, cooking etc