Advice please - living together, joint bank account and ex's!

k_bagpuss

Hello, I'm after some general advice O wise ones!

Having met a very very special man that I want to spend the rest of my life with I am currently in the process of moving in with him, and we have decided to open a joint bank account, have both our salaries paid in and then once all the bills are covered the left overs for savings, leisure time etc etc. She has already met someone else too, and she knows about us and said she is glad he has found someone. So far so good.

He separated from his wife & the marital home about 7 months ago (I met him after they split up!) and he pays a large amount to her and his 2 girls every month to cover their mortgage (the house is currently on the market but with the current housing situation it could remain on the market for a while yet) and bills and money for the children. In my humble opinion he is very generous with the amount of money he gives her every month (he is a very decent man!) way more than a court would have told him to pay and so far no solicitors have been involoved. He has already agreed that once the house is sold his wife will get a mortgage she can afford for the house she will have for the girls and any shortfall will be taken from the sale of their current property and he will take the remainder.

My question is this - Once the house is sold he does intend to start divorce proceedings, and I want to know if solicitors do get involved and she mentions that he has set up home with someone else (me!) would they look at our joint bank account and my salary coming in or would they just look at his salary?

The last thing I want to do is put him in a situation where it will cost him even more (and just want to point out I don't begrudge anything he pays out towards the children, they are wonderful kids and deserve the best!). I'd not even thought us having a joint acount could potentially cause him a problem, it was something my mum said yesterday.

Many Thanks

Loretta

I would open a joint account for paying the bills only, decide how much needs to go in every month and decide how much you are each going to pay towards them and then have a standing order from your own account, where ever your salary is paid into, and the same for him and just have this joint account for that. You will each have your own money from what is left over.

I don't know if having a proper joint account would cause trouble but this is a new relationship, he is only recently seperated, no divorce proceedings yet, just keep it all very simple for now, less to sort out if anything did go wrong

You are all 'in love' at the moment and the rest of us on here are not in love with this wonderful man!! This is what I would be telling my daughter too. Just slow it down, be in love and keep it simple for a while and enjoy it.

And listen to your Mum

ParadiseKidd

I don't think they can consider your income at all, however why not just wait until the divorce proceedings are over to keep things simple? It sounds like they won't be too complex, both your partner and his wife are being reasonable in the situation.
I would say that if you want to spend the rest of your life with this guy, then you'll have a joint bank account soon enough! In the meantime negotiate your finances / payments using a shared income/expenditure book and just enter everything manually, then see whats left over.

galvanizersbaby

k_bagpuss wrote: »

Hello, I'm after some general advice O wise ones!

My question is this - Once the house is sold he does intend to start divorce proceedings, and I want to know if solicitors do get involved and she mentions that he has set up home with someone else (me!) would they look at our joint bank account and my salary coming in or would they just look at his salary?

The last thing I want to do is put him in a situation where it will cost him even more (and just want to point out I don't begrudge anything he pays out towards the children, they are wonderful kids and deserve the best!). I'd not even thought us having a joint acount could potentially cause him a problem, it was something my mum said yesterday.

Many Thanks

Hi Bagpuss
Having been in a similar situ (I was the married one) 7 months seems quite a short time to have been separated - I'm sure it is all amicable but your OH does not have to wait until the house is sold to start divorce proceedings - if he is to be the petioner and his wife the respondent then assumably they have agreed he will be divorcing her on grounds of adultery or unreasonable behaviour? - otherwise 2 years have to pass before he could file for divorce on the grounds of separation.
If I were you I would listen to mum and not rush to set up a joint account - regardless of whether or not it could cause problems I think it would be unwise and un necessary at this stage x

whatatwit

I would go for a joint account but, as a previous poster suggested, keep your salary paid into your own account for now and transfer an agreed amount each to cover bills etc.
That way, you don't feel as though you have to account for every penny spent.
My friend's OH would audit the chequebook and bank statements each month :eek:

pollyanna24

I must admit that I agree with the above posters. Me and bf have a joint account like the one you mentioned, but it was a gradual process over 9 years!

We started off just having our own accounts and everything was separate (we were 18 - 1999)

Then we got a joint account when we bought a house as Nationwide said we had to have a bank account for the mortgage to come out of and it made sense that this account was a joint one. We each put enough in to cover mortgage and bills (we were 21 - 2002).

Finally, this account has graduated to having both our salaries paid in and everything is paid out of it (including our "pocket money" so we still have a bit of our own money) (we were 25 -2006). We only decided on this last step when we had to have the sit down talk about children and bf supporting me when I wasn't at work etc.

onlyroz

Agreed that it makes more sense to still keep your own accounts, have your salaries paid in there. Then figure out all the bills, split them according to your relative salaries, then set up standing orders to cover the bills plus a bit more. Then the "bit more" can be thought of as a holiday fund, or something. You then know exactly how much money you've got each month to spend on yourself, or to save as you see fit. That's what hubby and I do.

loftus

As far as maintenance is concerned they will just look at his salary. However, he has a new home with you and if things turned nasty and ended up in court - hopefully not! - his ex could try to claim a larger (larger than perhaps what is on the table at the moment) share of the equity in the family home because his housing needs have been met.

foreversomeday

They may ask to see your financial details, but they will not ask for more money from him even if you happen to be a millionaire. The only reason they ask to see them is to ascertain whether you are financially dependent on him - if you were, they sometimes lower the payments. Also, if you and he have children, his payments may go down.

something_girl

I think the CSA payments also take into account whether the new partner has children, regardless of paternity, so payments to the ex would be less, but I don't think you have children anyway?

When my ex husband was sent a CSA questionnaire some years ago, they did ask for all my salary/savings to be entered onto the form, I wasn't happy about that. Don't think it ever got as far as paying through the CSA, but they certainly wanted to know my income.

LameWolf

For what it's worth, when I was in this situation, we decided to maintain separate accounts, as we were 100% certain that his ex would try for my money, having already cleaned him out, and doing this forestalled any unpleasantness that might have occurred.

We have since found it convenient to keep the accounts separate (when he was out of work, I didn't have to tell DWP any of my details, for instance); we have an amicable arrangement regarding paying the bills, and have arranged that we can transfer money to each other online, at need.
Just my two pennyworth.:beer:
CSA also asked about me, he just named the benefits I was on, but didn't give any details of the amounts, and they didn't ask again.