Splitting the house after Divorce

matlad

Hi. My wife and I are now divorced and are now trying to agree how we split the house. I put a substantial amount of money into buying the house which was the profit from my previous house. Does this get taken into account or is it just split down the middle irrelevent of the original investment.. Thanks for any help.

elsien

It very much depends on your individual circumstances - how long you've been married, any children, are you both working, pensions, savings etc etc. You probably need to get some advice from a solicitor.

Thegirl

elsien wrote: »

It very much depends on your individual circumstances - how long you've been married, any children, are you both working, pensions, savings etc etc. You probably need to get some advice from a solicitor.

What they said ^.

To give you an example of how this can work. In my situation we had been together ten years, cohabited nine years, married three and have a two year old son.
Due to the cohabitation prior to marriage our marriage was classed as a long marriage (the cohabitation is classed as marriage in these circumstances). We earned similar amounts. We were doing 50/50 shared residency with our son. This meant everything split 50/50.
I was the only one who bought money into the relationship, I will leave with less than 20% of what I bought in.
I would have got more if I had of kept my ex's access to access to a minimum and demanded to stay in the house, I would have had the benefit of the low interest rate mortgage for a start, as the courts are still twisted in favour of the mother in some regards (in our circumstances as our son is still very young, not sure if the case would have been the same were he older).

Also, ask your ex wife. She may not want what she is entitled to but just what she thinks she's due (perhaps just half the equity accrued since).

Have a look on the wikivorce site, they're a mine of good information.