Soon to be ex-wife and future property 1 October 2021 at 12:33PM in Marriage, relationships & families 4 replies 831 views

_SKE2L

Hi,

I'm currently going through the divorce process, which has taken much longer than hoped due to my ex partner taking her time responding at each step and the court losing some paperwork early on which took a few months to resolve.

I'm hoping the decree nisi should go through in about 6 weeks and a clean break order has been drafted in preparation for this. Neither my ex partner or myself have a property.

It's been a long time now since separation, I've met someone else and we'd like to buy a house together. Our dream home has come up in the right area at a great price, and we don't want to miss this rare opportunity.

Firstly, if I were to complete the purchase if this house with my new partner, prior to the decree absolute or clean break coming into effect, as tenants in common with say a 95/5 split in my new partner's favour, would my ex partner's claim be limited to half of my 5% or half of the entire equity in the new property? My new partner has a lot more to contribute as a deposit than me; I'll probably only be putting ~£5k in that I saved since separation. My ex partner knows of these savings. 

If a statement of information is filed with a clean break that states my savings on it, and I then use these savings towards a house purchase before the clean break comes into effect, would this invalidate the clean break or mean that the property is not protected when it does come into effect? Would I need to inform my ex partner that the savings have been used towards the purchase of a property, if a sale were to complete before the clean break comes into effect?

Many thanks in advance

tacpot12

My understanding is that the property would not be protected if you bought it before the clean break agreement came into force (which I think will be when the decree absolute is granted) and that they would be entitled to half your equity in the new property, unless the clean break agreement says otherwise.. My suggestion would be to get a personal loan for £5K, gift this amount to your new partner, and then pay off the loan when the decree absolute is granted. You can then also go onto the mortgage and deeds if you are not already on them.

You should check this with the mortgage company and with your conveyancing solictor.  

  

Keep_pedalling

If your share of the house is based on how much cash you put in you will have exactly the same assets whether you have purchased the house or not, you will simply have swapped cash of equity in a house, 

74jax

Don't also forget that if you go in 95/5% your new partner would have a strong upper hand if you split. You seem to be looking at protecting against the ex but not your future.

If you have no savings, maybe build up a fall back plan. 

tightauldgit

If you buy a house with your cash then I think you would need to update your statement of information to reflect that but it should be easy enough to just submit the new information to the court as part of the process and it shouldn't affect the clean break agreement. Of course if you spend the £5k in liquid assets and then have to pay your ex half of it you are going to have to find the £2.5k to pay her.