Division of monies paid guidance?
mde555
Forumite 2 Posts
Hi, Sadly 20 yr relationship ending. Never married. Joint mortgage. 2 kids in last 8 yrs.
Wondered what the advice was on fair and equitable distribution.
Wondered what the advice was on fair and equitable distribution.
£200k of mortgage paid off, both pretty equal contribution, although Im slightly more at £120k (paid over last 18 odd years) to £100k invested at time of purchase from their previous house. £60k remaining to pay. Any advice?
However, how do we tackle bills paid? I’ve done most of that, circa £20k over past 18 yrs roughly. On the other hand, partner went part time for 3-5 yrs to do more child care (although their work was in a recessionary lull at time). For past 6 yrs the kids been at school so ability to work was there and they have done but I’ve paid bills as earn much more.
Are there any general rules of thumb on working out reasonable share?
Thanks for any advice. X It’s all amicable. Just want to move on, but do feel the bills payment deserves some recompense, accepting some extra childcare contribution.
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After such a long relationship you should be way past this type of 'I paid for this, you paid for that'.
Where does the children's welfare figure in your negotiations?
Your partner sacrificed (willingly or not, it doesn’t matter) their career prospects to look after your children. Maybe their industry was in a lull, but that doesn’t matter either. Do you realise how much nursery fees are? My DD pays £500 per month so her child can go to nursery 2 days a week. Maybe your ex should bill you for the years she spent at home, as well a loss of earnings, loss of career prospects?
Your children have been going to school for 6 years, but who gets called when they are sick? Who stays at home with them then? Do you? Does your partner? Is that why you can earn more than they do? Who runs the household: chores, organising the children, shopping, cooking meals, etc? Do you?
MFD: 30 March 2019
During the time you were living together you were both happy with that arrangement, it's not fair or reasonable to try to retrospectively change the agreement about how payments and lobour were split.
So far as the hosue is concerned the starting point is what it says on you dees- if you have a declaration of trust and hold as tenants in comon, reflecting the unequaldeposit then you folwo that, if there was an agreement, even if it wasn't written down, that that would be repayable then that's what should happen, if not, then the equiy is split equally.
Not to mention that if your partner stayed home to care for the childnre , they weren;t just doing a very valuablejob in caring for the childnre, and losing out on earnings at that time, they were also losing out on career development and promotion prospects and effectively setting their career back, so the fact that they earn less and will do so after you separate is likely to be at least in part due to their having bourne the weight of the bulk of the eearly years care
If you were paying all the bills whilst you were both working what did your partners wage go on? Will they be claiming for half of every meal out that they paid for or for every item they may of bought for the house?
Partnerships are about sharing, or they should be. It sounds like you have put everything on a tab to be paid back should you split up.
But the key point is that you can't suddenly expect to retrospectively charge for things that were nver agreed upon. If at the outset you had had an agreement that you would always pay for things exactly equally and theat if one of you paid more you would be reimbrsed at the end, then that would be different, but you didn't. (And if you had, then it's likely that there would have been a whole lot more discussion abotu how you split or accounted for child care and other non-financial contributions!)
When you have kids, you become a team and work as a team, so who does and pays what become irrelevant.
I'd just sell the house, split the equity 50/50 and move on with your lives.
If your partner earns less then perhaps it would be sensible to give him/her more of the equity so he/she can also afford to buy another home?
Stop thinking about who paid what and the past, and start thinking about how you (as a team) are now going to afford two homes both big enough for 2 kids.
Would've = Would HAVE (not 'of')
No, I am not perfect, but yes I do judge people on their use of basic English language. If you didn't know the above, then learn it! (If English is your second language, then you are forgiven!)
I'll start by saying in your shoes I'd just split everything right down the middle and do the right things by the kids (I'm sure you will do the latter no matter what). I am reminded of when Neil Diamond got divorced and said he wouldn't be where he was without the support of his wife and she deserved her half and that was it sorted.
However, if you really want to go down the route of unpicking then I think you need to break the problem down.
So, if I understand correctly you have paid £120k of the mortgage over 18 years and your partner put in 100k 18years ago. As a rough rule of thumb invested money doubles every 10 year so your partners 100k is notionally worth £400k (ie if they hasn't helped you buy a house they would have a balance of 400k in the bank).
Applying the same logic your mortgage contributions made over the same period are worth £240k (it's only x2 because they were paid over time rather than all being paid 18years ago).
I note that you say there is 60k to pay off the mortgage but the more important aspect is the value of the house and how much each of you contributed. Therefore, your partner should be recompensed to the tune of 62.5% of the house value and your should get 37.5% of whatever the house value is; even if it's less than 640k (in regard to the outstanding mortgage your partner would need to pay 62.5% of the 60k balance and you would pay the remainder).
That said, arguably your partner should get more because without their deposit 18 years ago it would have taken longer to buy a house and therefore chances are you'd have paid more if (say) you'd bought it 15 years ago once you'd saved the deposit. So your partner is arguably due all the value increase in the first 2-3 years (Nationwide have a house price index calculator you can use to establish what you owe your partner) so their share of equity is the house is higher than 62.5%.
If you use the calculator and a national average for a houses bought 18 years ago for 280k then it would have cost you 70k more if you'd bought it three years later; so they have saved you that too. You should probably double this but because of how long ago (again the time-value of money) but for now I'll just recognise that they saved you 70k so they are due 73% of the house value.
I suspect, once you balanced the bills paid versus the cost of child care then you may have some 'credit', but you'll still be in debt to your partner when balanced against the house.
Don't forget you also need to share any pensions pots, again with consideration of who earned it but who enabled it to be earned (ie child care etc).
As I said I would have just split everything 50/50 but turns out I wouldn't have been giving my partner fair recompense so good for you doing the such a selfless thing and making sure it's an entirely equitable distribution of assets even though you are the losing party - kudos!
Once you start bringing up "I paid/you paid" then any hope of an amicable split will disappear very quickly. After twenty years together with two children I can't see how anything other than 50/50 division of assets is fair as the answer to who paid for what over the last twenty years is "both of you paid". Don't forget to include pensions too.
Sorry to hear of your impending separation.