Ten years marriage,separation...she's offered me £10,00 to leave...where do I stand?

[Deleted User]

Hi all..new to the site and first post.
My wife and I have been married for 10 years and have a joint mortgage.We have a son who's 10 and she has a 15 year old son from a previous relationship.
We bought the house for 71K in 2001 where she put down 30K deposit.Since then we have shared the mortgage and bills and the house is now valued at 190K.There is a 52K mortgage on it.
We haven't been getting along that well and recently she said she wants a divorce.She last week offered me £10,000 to leave which I declined.
Ideally I'd like to stay in the house....and so does she...so we can't agree on that.I'd like to know where I stand in buying her out...or her buying me out....or just selling up.Of course there's our son to think of and I'd like custody but I think that's a long shot these days.I haven't seen a solicitor yet...but I feel that's around the corner.It looks like this could start getting messy so I'd like to start the ball rolling as to making a decision on the house as not for all this to start affecting my son.Thanks...any advice is welcome.

BitterAndTwisted

That ten grand offer is derisory so I'm glad that you declined it. There's a lot of equity in that house, even allowing for the £30k your wife put into it in the first place. She should buy you out or vice versa if either of you have the income to support such a mortgage, balanced against the responsibility both of you have for keeping a roof over your child's head for the next ten years and providing support. I think the average maths for child support is 15% of net monthly salary.

Getting solicitors involved will cost buckets, as I'm sure you're aware.

poppysarah

Sell and split the money.

getmore4less

How come the mortgage is so big?

adjust the following to take that into account.

£71k, £30k deposit £41k mortgage split 50:50

that would split the house 50.5:20.5 or 71% 29%

split the £190k that gives you £55.1k less 1/2 the mortgage £26k so closer to £30k would be more reasonable.


Then you have to adjust for kids etc.

TrickyDicky101

Legally isn't the deposit completely irrelevant after 10 years? Marital assets go 50:50 surely, perhaps modified by who has custody of the child.

Jowo_2

Some basic information is provided by Shelter on their relationship breakdown section which has links to a divorce/separation site for info about settlements.

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/families_and_relationships/relationship_breakdown

silvercar

If you end up in court, apart from spending a lot of money on legal costs, she will get a larger share of the equity as she needs to provide a home for your son. People I know who've been through this end up with a 70:30 split of the equity. Work out what that is and save yourself the costs of court.

surreybased

Very recent proposals for parents separting are recommending that the starting position is 50/50 child access. If this is the case then the housing situation should be that the father has a place which is suitable for his son i.e 2 bedroomed place.

What needs to happen is the assets from the marriage are divided, house, cars, savings, pensions.Mediation is suggested as the best way forward but I would also recommend seeing a solicitor who can often provide 30mins free advice

G_M

I too advocate advice: from a specialist in divorce/separation, not property law (most of us here are amateurs, in property not divorce!).

So Mediation, a solicitor, or an advice forum like here on family matters.

But I'd guess h key here is going to be custody. Whoever gets custody will get more money.

poppasmurf_bewdley

Get legal advice.

Look what happened to me. My wife and I split up and divorced 11 years ago. She got the house and the two kids, all the furniture, etc. etc. and left me with the huge telephone bill of £700 she ran up phoning her lover as I transfered the number to my new flat without knowing about the bill.

I paid for the kids via Child Support Agency, and then after 18 months one of my kids came to live with me full time so payments stopped, and then the other child came back to live with me as well because neither of them liked the new man in her life. During this time she didn't pay the mortgage despite having moved her paramour into the house and having two wages coming in, and the house was repossessed. She's never paid a penny for either of the kids.

I lost everything we had built up over 13 years of marriage, and have had to rebuild my whole life.

On the bright side, I'm now financially solvent, the two kids are doing well, but it could have been done a lot better if I'd had proper advice from the start.

dopester

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

On the bright side, I'm now financially solvent, the two kids are doing well, but it could have been done a lot better if I'd had proper advice from the start.

How is the ex-wife doing?

The OP needs to fight his corner. How would you like to accept a measly £10K and soon after find she's got someone on the side she moves into the house, or later meets someone. You've got to protect yourself, and that's working out something which is fair. £10K sounds very unfair in the circumstances.