urgent advice needed re divorce finances

hemple

my husband of three years has just told me he is leaving out of the blue. The house we live in is mine, we do not have joint bank accounts, he pays me a monthly amount and I pay all household bills food etc out of it so all bills are in my name. I know he has a substantial amount of money in savings, am I entitled any share of this??? I need to know because he has just offered me an amount to settle and I do not know if I should take it


thanks

HappyMJ

He's entitled to half the value of the equity (value less 10%-to account for sale costs-less mortgage) in the marital home too.

So...yes you're entitled to half of your combined assets and those assets include pensions as well.

How long were you living together in total? If it's less than 5 years then you might want to just agree to you both leaving with what you started with. So you keep the house and the sum that he's offered and he keeps the remainder of his cash assets and his pension. It's not always worth the court fight to get a little more. He'll need the money he has to buy somewhere else to live.

hemple

Hi thanks for the reply, if I stay in the house and continue to pay the mortgage (mortgage is in my name) what claim does he then have? I have had the house for over 20 years and he has lived here for 3. could he force me to sell it?

hemple

Also,he does own his own house with a mortgage on which is rented out

Kynthia

See a solicitor. Both of your assets are marital assets and you want to ensure any financial settlement you agree to is fair and final.

divadee

In my opinion it would be better for both of you to walk away with what you came into the marriage with. You have your house, he has his and any savings you have made over the life of the marriage be split 50/50.

Do you have children together?

hemple

no no children, the savings he has are the result of a recent inheritance , he got the cheque last week, it is 68K and he has offered me 5k to help tide me over paying bills etc when he leaves. With it being so recent would it be classed as joint asset? I don't want to be unfair/horrible but a friend has told me I need to think of myself. He has a much better paid job than I do. Would he be liable to pay me any maintenance? I just used the divorce calculator on wikivorce and it suggested he would.

divadee

Was the inheritance before or after he announced he was leaving?

Also how much equity is in each house?

hemple

he got the cheque on the Friday then suggested he wanted to leave on the Saturday and told me definitively yesterday that he was going.

hemple

oh and sorry the equity is about 40k in his and about 60-70k in mine

hemple

he actually knew he was getting inheritance over a year ago though