Help! What am I entitled too?

[EnteringTheUnknown]

Husband and I separated a few years back but have not yet divorced. I've been in matrimonial home with the kids and hes been paying the mortgage instead of child maintenance. He has now bought another house but wants me to buy him out of matrimonial home or agree to sell. I can not afford to buy him out and he knows this. I also can not afford a home if we sell and split the proceeds as he has borrowed against our home to fund his life and new home. What can I do? I'm lost, I can't afford a solicitor and I don't qualify for legal aid. Does anyone know what I am entitled too with regards to both properties as we are still married? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

You can’t not afford a solicitor

You can get 30 mins free with a solicitor. You can do it over and over so you can get eg 7 lots of free advice.

also Rights Of Women is free legal advice

Well he was stupid to buy a new house before divorcing as it’s now considered a marital asset. You NEED to get a solicitor!

You're married therefore you have rights over the new property he has bought as well.

Agree with others you can't afford not to see a solicitor.

Thank you, Tammygirl12. I have never heard of Rights of Women. I will google them.

This is very unlikely to happen. Some solicitors offer this, but only as a marketing tool obviously as they’re a business, and only if they’re not in demand.

Thank you, I was wondering if that was the case NutButterOnToast.
I feel like he is trying to dupe me.

I got my not in the wrong place! You can’t afford not to see a solicitor is what I meant!

Have you done it before? Because I have :)

in fact one solicitor spoke to me for over 90 mins for free and sent me a full page doc of info

OP are you working? My employer offers a employee assistance programme - during my divorce I got free legal advice. Close family can access this same service - if you aren't working, your husbands employer might.

Thanks Tigeresslearns,
I will look into this x

Thanks Tigeresslearns,
I will look into this x

Well hes been a bit stupid hasn't he!!

But echo the others, you need a solicitor. Some of the divorce you can do yourself using wiki divorce and various other websites on a quick google search but you NEED a solicitor for the financial stuff.

I am going to be really intrigued as to how this pans out if hes mortgaged your house to fund his new one!!

CombatBarbie, you and me both!

I think its a dick move doing this right on top of Christmas!
The divorce doesn't bother me in the slightest but the loss of mine and the kids home and the uncertainty around affording a new place to live, is making me feel very anxious and sick.

The starting point is 50/50 in divorce. How often is he caring for the DC? Did you split savings at seperation or has he taken them all? do you know what he earns and is the mortgage payment a fair amount to set against his maintenance payments?

No you can't.

50/50 including his new house so he’s been an idiot. You are definitely going to need a solicitor for this so you’re going to have to suck up the costs unfortunately - can your parents help out?

Give the poor guy a bit of slack.

Well I have done :)

All the equity he's paid for off the mortgage in lieu of child maintenance needs to be accounted for (to you), during division of assets. If he's borrowed against that element, he's going to be in a right pickle. And since you're still married he shouldn't have been able to reborrow against the marital home without you signing up to that, nor should he have been able to take out another mortgage for his new house without you being involved.

You'll be entitled to in excess of 50% of the marital assets (assuming you don't earn significantly higher wage than him) because you're primary carer and need to accommodate the children. If he can't buy you out of your share in the current circumstances, he may well be forced to sell the new house in order to do so.

Don't forget pensions may be another significant asset in the marital pot, so if one of you has a much bigger pension that might need to raided too. Which can make things quite messy, and not usually in anyone's interest if the assets can be divided fairly without dipping into pensions.

Difficult to advise on specifics without knowing more about the circumstances - how much is the marital home worth, how much equity is in it, how much has he paid off in lieu of childcare? Is there a mortgage on the new home, how much equity there? What's the value of your pensions (if either of you have final salary pensions you'll have to have them valued, could be worth more than you think)? You may not want to post details online for privacy reasons, but you can probably get a good idea just by looking yourself at the above.

OP you will need a schedule of both of your assets & liabilities. Including incomes, expenditure, house equity, mortgages, savings/investments and pensions.
All this has to be produced by each of you on a Form E.
It's a daunting task, but you will feel so much better once you've done it.
Read up on the Rights of Women website, and see a solicitor - but the first thing a solicitor will tell you is to do a Form E.
A final financial settlement will need to ensure that you and the DC are adequately provided for, and that he is adequately housed. What that looks like will depend on your circumstances, income & assets.

Assuming you've been married for a reasonable length of time, and the children are his children, then modern divorce tends to move towards something like a 50/50 split of all assets. So that concerns houses, pensions, savings, cars, etc. after taking account of loans against them.

That 50/50 may be varied to take account of the need to house children, or other contributions made, but be careful not to spend a lot of time that could be expensive compared to the amounts of money involved. Being a primary carer can sometimes lead to a higher share, but not always. But it might affect which assets are seen as important (e.g. you want more of the housing equity, but can deal with less of the future pension value just an example, might not be appropriate).

You'll be encouraged to make progress with an agreement, or to attend mediation. Obviously that needs disclosure of assets.

Some solicitors will be OK about being paid from a final settlement, but you'd need to check. Otherwise could resort to credit if you have access to that.

How did he remortgage the family home without you knowing and agreeing? Are you on the mortgage / deeds? If not you need to register your home rights with the Land Registry so he can’t sell it or borrow more without your agreement. Then you need to collect all info for form E and he needs to do the same and exchange it. You don’t have any discussions until this is done. Until you know the level of assets any discussion is pointless.
You will be able to get a copy of his new title from the land registry to see what it cost and if it has a mortgage on it.
It would take about a year for him to get it through the courts and an order to sell so there is no point worrying now.
Is the CM or mortgage payment higher? It may make sense to go to CMS if he’s employed in case he starts messing you around with the mortgage payments to bully you.

This is very messy. It really sounds like you will need a solicitor. But the starting point on the home would have been 50/50, if he’s remortgaged to take cash he may have already received his share, but can you afford to take on the mortgage? It’s also important to remember he will be paying higher than normal mortgage payments because of his decision to release cash.

My DP did something similar with his exDP but it was done amicably and she signed away her rights to his onward purchase (if you haven’t, I suspect you also have a claim on his new home). She then took the lion’s share when their former home was sold (as he’d already had most of his share from remortgaging).