Divorce 5 years - Mortgage Questions

dhalsimsreach

Hi all, first time posting here so please forgive any faux pas.

My brother has recently decided to get a divorce after a break down in his and his wife's relationship. It will be 5 years in July, they didn't cohabit prior to marriage.
About 3 months ago they had got a rather substantial mortgage out own what was to be their new home. He paid the full deposit and has paid every repayment in full. Since filing for divorce in March she has decided to put in £500 which is a third of it in the joint account, no doubt on advice of her solicitor.
Financially she worked as a travel agent, however never contributed to any of the finances at all and sent around £600 a month to her family I'm Kenya. My brother is by no means a rich man and doesn't earn much through his job, but through an unbelievable discipline and lots of saving has 3 property's excluding the new hone in both their names.

Given this context, I'm wondering if any of you know what the possible outcomes would be for him from a financial perspective. He is such a gentle and kind man combined with the fact that he has mild learning difficulties, has made me really worry hes going to get shafted after he has worked so hard for what he has.

I can envisage sorting the new mortgage is going to be quite messy.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

CookieMonster

Speak to the mortgage company as soon as possible, the financial situation (new mortgage/3 houses) will be a mess until the divorce is sorted out.

dhalsimsreach

CookieMonster said:

Speak to the mortgage company as soon as possible, the financial situation (new mortgage/3 houses) will be a mess until the divorce is sorted out.

Thank you, I will see what they say about it all.

sassyblue

Don’t think that his wife putting in one payment entitles her to a bigger share because it’s irrelevant.  However, having said that, the starting point in every divorce is a financial settlement of 50/50 to each party but many things determine the final outcome.

This is a short marriage but there are four properties involved, it may be the case that any of those properties owned prior to the marriage can be ignored and determined as his but if they were together in a relationship for a long time prior to marriage that may be taken into account. Your brother has put them all in joint names so how long were they together before marrying? 

Your brother needs to work out the equity in each property and any savings he/they have as that’s the funds they will be arguing over. He needs a good lawyer.