Divorce Advice

mjkyorkshire1

So another question has cropped up this week. My wife has been to see a solicitor already, who told her that she should only be responsible for the credit cards in her name.
We have about five between us, and most are in my name as I was able to get higher credit limits.
We never really spent anything for ourselves on them, it was holidays, car fixes, the odd weekly shop before pay day.
The cards in my name are more than double those in her name, but surely as the cards were taken out during our marriage and we moved the balances from one to another the debt should be equally shared?

Guest101

mjkyorkshire1 wrote: »

So another question has cropped up this week. My wife has been to see a solicitor already, who told her that she should only be responsible for the credit cards in her name.
We have about five between us, and most are in my name as I was able to get higher credit limits.
We never really spent anything for ourselves on them, it was holidays, car fixes, the odd weekly shop before pay day.
The cards in my name are more than double those in her name, but surely as the cards were taken out during our marriage and we moved the balances from one to another the debt should be equally shared?

All savings and all debts go into a pot.

It is then decided if any debts or savings are exempt.

So if you bought on finance (or credit card) a car and kept the car, the debt would be yours too.

TBagpuss

It would pay you to go to talk to solicitor to get some initial advice. You may find it helpful to look at the possibility of Collaborative Law as a way of helping the two of you reach agreement amicably with the help of proper advice.

The law is gender neutral - in a typical situation where the husband is the higher earner and the wife the primary carer for children then the pattern tends to be that the wife gets a higher share of the capital due to greater needs and lower earning capacity (Although longer term in those scenarios the ex-husband will normally be better off )

In your case, if you share care of the children equally then there's no reason that you could n't agree to have one child 'officially' living with you and having contact 3 nights a week with mum, and the other living with mum and having contact with you 3 nights a week, which would allow each of you to claim tax credits and child benefit of one child, and which would also mean that the child maintenance could take into account the time they spent with each of you.

In terms of the debt, the situation is that as between you and the credit card company, the debt is yours, Between you and your wife, within the divorce, a court would look at how the money was spent. If the debt was built up for the benefit of the family as a whole (which it sounds as though it was) then it is reasonable for it to be treated as joint debt and taken into account in the final financial settlement. However, if you earn more than she does, it may be fair for you to take responsibility for a higher proportion of the debt, which in practice might mean you pay what is in your name and she pays what is in her name.

justme111

If children are with you as much as they are with her not sure why would you pay cs at all. Mind , practically it will be difficult if not impossible to share expenses for children - clothes shopping, paying for clubs etc as while roof and food will be responsibility of the parent they stay with there are expenses that invariably give ground for disputes.

LilElvis

justme111 wrote: »

If children are with you as much as they are with her not sure why would you pay cs at all. Mind , practically it will be difficult if not impossible to share expenses for children - clothes shopping, paying for clubs etc as while roof and food will be responsibility of the parent they stay with there are expenses that invariably give ground for disputes.

There is often a disparity in incomes. For example, it would hardly be fair for parent A to be expected to bring up child 1 on an income of £10k, whilst parent B has an income of £40k to bring up child 2.

Guest101

LilElvis wrote: »

There is often a disparity in incomes. For example, it would hardly be fair for parent A to be expected to bring up child 1 on an income of £10k, whilst parent B has an income of £40k to bring up child 2.

It would be fairer on the children to both live with parent 2, as they can best provide for them.

justme111

Then what I would do is to calculate 15% (or whatever percentage is a standard in cs) of both incomes post tax , deduct lower amount from higher and resulting difference would be paid by higher earner to lower earner. Easy quick fair and no money spent on solicitors. Still the issue of children related expenses share will be difficult to sort as there would need to be constant dialogue present to discuss them which is not possible if parents split.

LilElvis

Guest101 wrote: »

It would be fairer on the children to both live with parent 2, as they can best provide for them.

Financially possibly. Higher earnings often/usually go hand in hand with longer working hours, therefore requiring breakfast clubs and after school care. Even that wouldn't cover the working hours for many - for example my husband seldom gets home before 7·30, well after post school clubs end and too late for young children. This would leave employing a nanny (very, very expensive) as the only viable option - or the lower earning parent who, likely, has more structured and less onerous working hours. So the higher earning parent may be able to offer more financially, but this would be eroded by high childcare costs and would not give the children time with parents but rather with childcare providers. Hardly ideal for the children.

It's precisely these issues that led me to give up my career when I had my daughter.

mjkyorkshire1

So I start mediation with my wife next week, firstly has anyone got any quick tips to get me out the other side of it in a sane manner?
I see it as being a quite straight forward process, but then again I'm a man, and a project manager, but from my wife there seems to be a theme of "entitlement", wanting to stay in the house, avoiding the shared marital debt and general guilt-tripping. I'm not saying that's her thought process (because she's not saying a lot), but that's how I interpret the tone of her e-mails. What started out as an agreement that we would discuss things like Xmas has turned into me being informed of what the girls told her they wanted to do, without even speaking to me.

She's also started seeing her ex-boyfriend, who now sleeps over in the house I still own, and I don't know what, if anything, I can do with that information?

RAS

Forget the boy friend except that you can make one of the triggers for removing any spousal maintenance co-habiting for 6 months.

Your ex should be claiming Mortgage Interest allowance; has she done that? It only pays the interest.

Check https://www.turn2us.org.uk to see how much your ex can

With respect to your payments, the cost of your childcare vouchers should be part of the payments. Also if you are having the children 3 nights then the CMS is reduced pro-rata. But she may use that reduce contact.

Re festivities, I suggest that you agree alternate years.