Generally speaking, what is a partner entitled to in a divorce?

paddy's_mum

He could be a lovely, decent man and she could be an insatiable gold digger. However, that makes no real difference to any reply to the original question.

They are married. Under UK law, that state confers expectations, rights and obligations and no amount of chat, opinion or dissent is going to alter that to suit the argument of the husband in the OP.

It is some of the attitudes displayed that make me cross since they fly in the face of the spirit of the law. Are we really wanting to go back to the bad old days when wives supported husbands financially and by their hard work and going without, sometimes for years, only to be traded in for a younger model and left virtually destitute - and the laws of that time supported such totally unfair conduct. No real share of the ownership of the matrimonial home, no sharing of a pension, no right to claim this, that or the other and woe betide the wife who had given up her job to raise a family and run the home while hubby was out earning 'his' money. It happened in my lifetime and I have very firm views that the current reasoned and reasonable division of assets is a better way to go on. Clearly, the OP and his supportive friend don't agree.

Unless the wife in the original scenario held a gun to the husband's head, he (presumably) married of his own free will. In so doing, the couple agreed to share things and it is close to dishonest, in my view, to now say that the rules should be altered for this husband so that the husband doesn't lose or get stung. The very wording used presupposes that fair play is the one option they don't want to see come to pass.

The fact that (we are told) she committed "infidelity" really doesn't come into it in a legal system that in the main advocates no fault divorce. Judges are instructed to ignore any misconduct on the part of either spouse unless the behaviour is so outrageous that it would be blatantly unjust to so ignore it. The fact that this wife cheated -adultery once? hanky-panky under the influence of alcohol? sincerely and deeply regretted it? has begged for a second chance from a husband who won't forgive?- shouldn't mean that she is dispossessed and stripped of all advantage.

Neither should the husband who on one bitterly regretted occasion fetches his wife an open-handed slap in the middle of a furious matrimonial row be deprived of his fair share of their assets in a subsequent divorce action. Should you lose your house and end up in a hostel for the homeless because you were the one who committed the matrimonial crime? Should you be given your husband's entire lifetime savings because he came home drunk one night last week and seriously offended your parents?

I don't believe that the laws we have at present can be bettered. It is no longer possible for one or other spouse to concoct stories to besmirch the other party so that assets, which both parties aimed for and worked towards end up being denied to the wrong-doer.

I have a question for mitrant, who started this thread on his friend's behalf. While your friend was paying more than half the household costs because he was earning more, was his wife doing more of the household care and organising because she was working fewer hours outside the home? If - as seems likely since it's the way that most people appear to organise their joint lives - she was supporting her husband in many small but valuable ways, what value did he put on that? If you take the "it was her fault" line and punish her accordingly, as neneromanova and one or two others advocate, then someone had better calculate what backlog of salary she is entitled to for all the work she did on behalf of their joint life, which now appears to have been conditional in the eyes of the husband.

Finally - and yes, I'm guessing, supposing or in some other way reaching a viewpoint! :-) - that your friend is "distressed" over the behaviour of his spouse and not distraught at the thought of losing some of his money, which is how the original comments came over.

He can save himself a lot of heartache and worry by finding a solicitor specialising in family law with whom he feels in sympathy, rather than waiting for his own solicitor to return. Bear in mind too that the existing solicitor is unlikely to specialise in matrimonial law - unless there is past family law history and much, much more to this story than we are being told. I do wish him luck in an unhappy time provided that in trying not to be robbed, he doesn't in his turn perpetrate robbery on his errant spouse.

paddy's_mum

Here's a thought for your friend to consider, OP.

If this man and woman were not really equal partners within the marriage, as seems to be the case from the 'evidence' you have presented, why was the husband taking any money at all from the wife to go towards the home and their bills?

Surely he isn't daft enough to say that she is only supposed to give her skills and contribute her own money if it doesn't compromise his assets years down the line? If that is his hedge-my-bets attitude towards his wife throughout their relationship, then he wasn't fit for marriage, was he?

mitrant

Thank you for all of your responses, even those who have chosen to make unfounded assumptions about my friend's personality and his living arrangements.

I shall attempt to respond to each individual's comments requiring a response here, so as not to clutter up the board too much. Please accept my apologies if I miss something out.

Floss2 - I am not certain as to why he is unwilling to discuss the situation with another solicitor. I do know that the solicitor he uses is a very old friend (I believe they go all the way back to college or uni) and it may simply be an issue of trust but I'm not wholly sure and didn't really think to ask last night.

Paddy's Mum - I would imagine that most people start considering the financial implications of a divorce after getting married because at the time of getting married they are under the fairy-tale illusion that their marriage will beat all those divorce-rate statistics and last forever. Otherwise I would imagine that pre-nups would be much more commonplace.

My comments about Macca? I made one fleeting remark about a divorce case that was still recent and very well publicised.

As for their personal situation - you are making a lot of assumptions based on MY wording of the situation. So I used words such as "sting" - these are my words, not his, not hers. It is completely inappropriate to make any such suggestions that she was "driven into the arms of another" when you know nothing about the situation particularly when all of your information is coming from a third-party who is focused on a specific part of what was a much longer conversation.

OlderNotWiser - The house is in his name because it was purchased by him before they even met and there has never been any reason to change the name on the deeds. She never made an issue of it and I don't believe he even thought about it until recently.

He keeps his money to himself because its his money. With paying for the majority of the bills (the only bills I know of that he doesn't pay are HER mobile phone bill and HER car tax, but he does pay for HER car insurance because she cannot afford it on the car that he bought for her). She keeps her money to herself. They have spent money on each other but THEY had an arrangement from the very beginning to be financially independant - and just for the record, it was HER who first suggested no joint bank accounts.

I do not know of any complaints from his wife about him spending money on the home - in fact, from what I know, she was very happy with some of the additions - and once again, for the record, his dream home also included turning an entire bedroom into a wardrobe for his wife.

His main concern is not whether he would have to part with money. Once again, I am focusing on a specific part of a much larger conversation we had last night and a part of the conversation that I do feel is causing him a lot of stress. What you may not be considering is if that he takes a large financial hit as a result of this, his business could be affected and people may have to be laid off - my friend has always tried to adopt the Google "Don't Be Evil" approach and as I know this man, and you don't, I can tell you that the idea of laying people off is something that causes my friend distress. And yes, there is also a perhaps negative concept that my friend doesn't want to hand over his money to someone who has p****d all over their relationship by having an affair.

BitterAndTwisted - No, the wife has absolutely no involvement in the company that I am aware of.

Paddy's Mum - You really are hung up with my use of the word "sting" aren't you? Perhaps you could provide me with a list of appropriate words that I may use in dialogue with you to indicate the sudden loss of financial assets so that I may refrain from continuing to incur your wrath?

I did not present an argument in the OP. I simply stated the facts. The only thing *I* said was that I didn't believe that the house was a marital asset but I wasn't sure of that. It appears, based on the responses, I am incorrect. But other than that, no, I did not present any arguments that my friend is entitled to keep all his money - I simply provided the facts of the matter because I didn't know whether they would have any bearing on the case.

I have not, nor has he, suggested at any point that anybody is looking to avoid "fair play" - on the contrary, if my friend was planning on preventing his wife from receiving his money there are plenty of suspect channels he could take to move his money about so that his wife and the courts wouldn't be able to find it. However, this is not what he is doing, and it is not something I am about to help him do. We are talking about a legal, legitimate process here in which I am making a simple enquiry as to how much of his assets she is likely to receive, for the purposes of attempting to put my friend's mind at rest regarding his financial future, his company's future, his employees futures, his housekeeper's future, his gardener's future etc. etc. etc.

My friend has never treated his wife unfairly (I am sure they have had the standard marital rows behind closed doors) rather he has always been very fair with his wife - and has spent a lot of his money on her. The car, the holidays, the bills (such as the landline phone bill which she runs up, and he pays off), the jewellry and the aforementioned wardrobe filled with clothes that he mostly paid for. He is not some kind of totalitarian dictator who keeps his poor forlorn wife on a leash, lets her eat the scraps from his plate and chucks her a few pennies from time to time so she can buy some soap. I am really wondering where in my OP people are getting these impressions and I feel I must apologise for them if that's the case. She lives very comfortably and has never to my knowledge raised any complaints regarding things such as ownership of the house. My friend purposely has bought her a lot of things and shortly after they were married paid off her £28,000 debts. He does this so her wages, which are much lower than his, can be spent more freely by her seeing her friends and going out and having fun and such - although recently she's been using it to pay for.... other things.

I didn't touch upon any of this stuff in my OP because frankly, it was gone 2:30 in the morning, I'd had a few drinks while trying to cheer my rather distraught friend up and thought I'd see if I could get a general consensus here because I've found this forum useful in the past. Woe betide my ignorance as I never realised this would turn into an inquisition led by two parties over how evil my friend is.

Oh and for the record, as alluded to above, my friend employed a housekeeper. Quite frankly, the only thing wifey may have been required to do is make her own dinner or coffee one night.

All the household bills he didn't pay were the ones she was running up herself - her mobile phone and such. Gas, electric, internet, phone, water, gardener, housekeeper, window cleaner and everything else came out of his pocket. I suppose I should have made that clearer as "mobile phone" is not considered a household bill. Apologies.

paddy's_mum

I take on board all that you have said and thanked you for the further explanation.

However (as I said in an earlier post) it makes no difference whether it's a him or her situation; who paid what to whom; who committed a matrimonial crime; whether the joint assets are in the millions or only the thousands. The courts have starting points upon which they base their calculations in their efforts to effect a fair resolution for both parties and the generosity or your friend, or otherwise, has almost nothing to do with what a solicitor will negotiate or what a judge will stamp as an Order of the Court.

Pre-nups would, I am absolutely certain, be much, much more common if they were enforceable in the UK courts. Sadly, they are not which is why living together with ownership of assets decreed by Trust documentation is becoming so very prevalent.

I do feel that it is somewhat naive of you to present a whole scenario, expressed in your own words, but giving a great deal of information about the situation and then be annoyed that people pick up on what you said, or read things into the gaps. On a forum such as this, a great deal of what people try to help with is based on reading between the lines. No personal aspersions were made since clearly none of us know the actual person. Conversely, what a great many of us have seen is too many spouses - often the husband - behaving in appalling and selfish ways to avoid paying their just, honest dues. Some will even make their children suffer so long as they get to hit back at the wife they are so desperate to punish.

May I point out that there has been a decided undertone of dislike of the wife throughout this thread and it is not unreasonable for a reader to wonder how slanted your viewpoint may be....or do you really think that referring to "wifey" in your last post is an honourable, neutral, fair-minded expression of affection?

I'm sorry if my point of view, which I believe was courteously expressed, has made you so indignant. I stand by my advice though, which is that the attitudes displayed (in whosever words) are not going to cut much ice with the relevant authorities and perhaps need to be modified a little.

At no point did I call your friend an evil man. Is your anger based on your perception of him as a victim? If so, perhaps you would be wiser to try to keep out of the whole sorry mess, however much you wish to support your friend. You could so easily become sucked far too deeply into it all and I suggest that at this time, his best friend should be a sympathetic and experienced lawyer.

Despite what you apparently perceive as my criticism of your friend, I do wish him well at what is a difficult time for anyone in the throes of a break-up. Do you think that perhaps your own animosity might be fuelling the fires of his distress and that taking a somewhat more backward seat might actually be of more benefit to him?

Oldernotwiser

Thank you for your explanation.

I think that the most telling point in your post is " The house is in his name because it was purchased by him before they even met and there has never been any reason to change the name on the deeds." - If getting married isn't a reason for putting property in joint names, I don't know what is.

Perhaps some of us see marriage as more of a partnership than others do; fortunately the divorce courts will make the decision based on a fairness which I hope will satisfy all parties.

mitrant

My anger is based around the fact that I asked a straight-forward, simple question, providing information that I know about their financial circumstances in case it had any direct bearing on a potential settlement. It is you, and one or two others, who rather than answer this question and leave it be chose to make multiple unfounded accusations about my friend and in your own particular way call into question his character for being concerned about what is in fact a very big part of adult life - finances. I am not about to post a detailed, psychological analysis on him and his wife on a forum primarily dealing with money. You also made reference to myself in some way wishing to not play fair, a comment which I find grossly insulting to my own character and something which is certainly not backed up by anything I had said myself.

You may argue that you were "reading between the gaps" but there was absolutely no reason to do this, and even less reason to besmirch somebody who isn't even a participant in this dialogue by presenting what you have apparently "read" on a public forum. All you needed to do was to answer the question as to how much my friend is likely to lose if he chooses to divorce his wife - if you were unable to do that then surely the best course of action would have simply been to remain silent, yes?

This...

However (as I said in an earlier post) it makes no difference whether it's a him or her situation; who paid what to whom; who committed a matrimonial crime; whether the joint assets are in the millions or only the thousands. The courts have starting points upon which they base their calculations in their efforts to effect a fair resolution for both parties and the generosity or your friend, or otherwise, has almost nothing to do with what a solicitor will negotiate or what a judge will stamp as an Order of the Court.

...is all you have ever needed to say. Anything else was irrelevant, unfounded and in some cases flat out offensive.

I will refer to an individual who mistreats a friend of mine in whatever way I choose, however, to suggest that I have expressed "undertones of dislike" for "wifey" is also reading into something that isn't actually there, particularly as no biased agenda was expressed in the original post (and "throughout" this thread I have only made two posts thus far - three once this is posted). Once again, I presented the facts - admittedly in a blunt, matter-of-fact way - in order to gauge opinions on a subject I myself am not too knowledgeable in.

You may regard my use of the word "wifey" in much the same vein you apparently regard my use of the word "sting" but given the fact that there are plenty of people who do not consider "wifey" to be derogatory (including the "wifey" in question who has used it, multiple times, self-referentially) I fail to see any reason to read any further into it.

And as for my involvement in the whole saga - I am merely a friend who was trying to do something a friend would do and research a subject in order to present my friend with information that may help to ease his mind during a trying time. Any feelings I have towards his wife, whether he chooses to divorce her or not, are kept purely to myself and are not discussed with him. It is not my business or obligation to tell other people how to run their relationships, particularly given the not-so-stellar job I have done in the past of running my own, and I certainly am not about to seek to nudge him in one way or the other. Frankly, until this whole sorry mess I got on quite well with his wife and do not wish her any harm and hold no real malicious feelings towards her. I am disgusted with what she did and if her actions terminate my previous friendship with her then that will be unfortunate, but so be it.

My interest in this matter is to see my friend through this whole thing.

mitrant

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Thank you for your explanation.

I think that the most telling point in your post is " The house is in his name because it was purchased by him before they even met and there has never been any reason to change the name on the deeds." - If getting married isn't a reason for putting property in joint names, I don't know what is.

Perhaps some of us see marriage as more of a partnership than others do; fortunately the divorce courts will make the decision based on a fairness which I hope will satisfy all parties.

I am still not seeing any problem. The wife never made any claim to the house and was also the one who was adamant about remaining financially independant. If my friend were to die, his house, to the best of my knowledge, is left to his wife anyway (my friend has had a will since he was 21, updated as and when - we all thought it was morbid back then, but I suppose it is sensible) along with various other assets.

Reversing the situation somewhat - if my partner owned a house (outright, no mortgage or anything) and we got married and I moved into her home I wouldn't be expecting my name to be put on the deeds. It isn't my property and I have contributed nothing to its purchase, alterations and very little towards its upkeep. As far as I'm concerned, the property would be hers and I wouldn't be looking to claim any ownership to it. If, however, I was financially responsible for any payments towards the purchase of the house (ie. taking on part of the mortgage) or responsible for investing in the home to make alterations and the like then I would expect to claim joint-ownership - but this isn't the case here.

paddy's_mum

Mitrant wrote:- "I will refer to an individual who - insert particular knowledge, impression, assessment, viewpoint or comment here - in whatever way I choose."

That's fine ... but I reserve the right to do exactly the same. Okay?

Cheers.

mitrant

paddy's_mum wrote: »

Mitrant wrote:- "I will refer to an individual who - insert particular knowledge, impression, assessment, viewpoint or comment here - in whatever way I choose."

That's fine ... but I reserve the right to do exactly the same. Okay?

Cheers.

That's up to you, but if you're going to post unfounded and offensive remarks about a close friend of mine without any reason and solely based on whatever you've "read between the gaps" then you can expect a hostile reception. I never asked for any such evaluation - as I've said (what seems like a thousand times) I asked how the assets would be split and that's that.

I doubt you would like it if I started labelling you as a misandrist based on what I read between your lines.

Lunar_Eclipse

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Well, just to explain my thinking on the subject;

a. After 6 years of marriage the house they live in is still in his name only.
b. He keeps his money to himself, despite his wife earning so much less than he does.
c. He stashes away substantial amounts of money in his own name.
d. He's spent large sums of money turning his house into his dream home.
e. His main concern regarding divorce is whether he'll have to part with any of his money.

I don't think that there's any "fictional elaboration" involved as all this is mentioned in the OP's post.

I appreciate that all marriages are different but the above would make me likely to look for someone else who had some concept of marriage and partnership!

Thanks for the clarification.

As far as not changing the house deeds, I wouldn't assume this was deliberate (most likely not IMO). It's simply unnecessary boring admin hassle. We haven't got round to fully communicating our last address change of 6 years ago, so I know this wouldn't be on our list of priorities.

If we're being brutally honest, I think most people on the brink of divorce, without children involved, have financial considerations as their main concern. Where infidelity is concerned by the other party, I could see it almost becoming the only concern! So again, it wouldn't ring personality defect alarm bells with me.

Anyway, I don't think this is helping the OP much. I had a similar conversation with a good friend today; divorce likely and so so sad.:o