Practicalities of seperation

roddyframe

Very very regular user here but people know my username so wanted to keep it quiet for now)

My husband and I have agreed that we need to seperate. We have been married 23 years, and have children of 18 and 14. Obviously we've never done this before, and want to be as fair as possible to each other so wondered if anyone had any suggestions as to the sort of things we needed to think about.
We both earn roughly the same ( about £24,000) although I have the potential to earn more as I work part time. We have a house with a mortgage of about £38,000 which is probably worth about £110,000. I would like to stay here, with the children and he is quite happy for that to happen.
The only debt we have is a credit card bill of £2000 which is mine, and currently on 0% so I'm quite happy for that to be my sole responsibility. We have a car, which is pretty much on its last legs, but all the no claims discount is in my name.
I could pay the mortgage by myself, but I don't think I could afford to buy him out at the moment. He also has about £40,000 in company shares ( only £10,000 of which can currently be accessed) but this has always been money we saved for our daughters for their future ( topping up university loans etc) We have no other savings, but have our own current accounts, and bills are paid equally out of another account.
My thinking at the moment is that we get the house valued, and work out what I would 'owe' him, and agree that at some point in the future this would be paid to him. Then I take on paying the mortgage ( but at the moment keep it in joint names as the rate on this mortgage is so good)
Is the recommended amount of maintenance 15% for one child, and 20% for two? I'm sure I read that somewhere. Our eldest will be off to Uni in September, and in a cold hearted way the quicker we get this sorted the better, as then she will stand a chance of getting a grant!
My suggestion is that we each take £5000 out of these available shares to give us a bit of a start, and then the rest is left for the girls to use. I know that he will do this, rather than rush off with it all!
Finally we both have a pension, I think at the moment we would both still be quite happy if the other was still named as beneficiary, although I appreciate that once we move on this will change. I don't think either of us will fight the other for pensions though.

Just looking for some advice really, off anyone who's done this amicably. I'm positive this will be the right thing for both of us, and want it to be as positive a situation as this can be.

flutterby_lil

I admire you for wanting to keep it amicable.

I think you need to see a solicitor to get it all down in writing as at some point it "may" get messy, especially if one of you meets somebody else and you have extra added pressure from partner and wanting to keep them happy. I know you will not have even thought of that but I have seen it happen so many times.

Good luck and keep the girls as number one priority.

mustmakealist

Sorry to hear that things have not worked out for you and agree with flutterby about keeping it amicable. There is a lot to think about, so please don't get rushed into something you might later regret.

The starting point for most division of assets is 50:50. This means looking at the equity in the house, any savings you have, company shares and what is more difficult to assess, the value of your relevant pension pots. If your husband has been working full time for longer than you his pension pot may be considerably larger than yours and will result in him retiring on a bigger pension than you. Against this you can offset any debts. This will give you your combined 'worth'. You then start to work out what each of you will hang onto.

From your post above there is £72,000 equity in the house and £40,000 in shares giving a total of £112,000. Against this is £2000 credit card bill. I know that you said that you are happy for it to be 'yours' but if it was used for family expenditure ie christmas, new car, holiday, kids clothes etc it is perfectly valid to offset it. The total due to each of you would then be £55,000 if you were going for a 50:50 split. It could be argued that as you will have responsibility for supporting your younger daughter until she is 18 you are entitled to a larger share. This is something you will need to think about and hopefully can agree on.

If you engage a solicitor, they will quite reasonably be out to get as much for you as possible from any settlement. Similarly your husband's solicitor will be doing the same. Any money that you spend on solicitors will mean that there is less for either of you. I don't want to put you off using one - just trying to outline some of the pitfalls

When I was getting divorced I found a very useful forum somewhere and also a chat room - sorry I can't remember what it was called but there are a few around. If you can see through the sometimes angry posts you may get a lot of useful information and advice from them.

Good luck on your journey. There will be both good and bad days ahead, but I think you've made a really good start and I hope that above all you can keep things amicable and not get sucked into a lot of arguments about money. Sadly there will not be enough money to run 2 homes in the way that you have been running one and that will cause a few problems. It wil get better and once everything is settled you will be able to move on and life will be good again

Annisele

There's a Child Maintenance Calculator here. It's an estimate, but it might give you a starting point.

It sounds as though you're happy to pretty much ignore your pensions, but for some couples their pensions are worth significantly more than their house - so I think you should definitely get figures for those before you make decisions.