Divorce and assets split: where do I stand?

Exodi

tightauldgit said:

Exodi said:

RobertF82 said:

gizmo111 said:

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

I had a reasonably similar situation to you in that my ex was stay at home and I worked - the court won't care (and I'm not saying they should) the starting point is 50/50. The past is largely irrelevant in divorce proceedings - the court looks at what you have now and what your needs are. 

The 50/50 thing works both ways - so if she was saving her wages and has a savings account you are potentially entitled to half of it. If she bought a car or other assets with the money ditto. 

With regards spousal maintenance I think it's not really a common thing nowadays but the court will look at what she needs, what her earning capacity is, etc and they may decide some spousal maintenance is appropriate. Or may not. If she's getting a decent lump sum as a settlement then I think it's not likely she would get maintenance.

With regards the house, there's no reason a court would force a sale if you are offering to buy her out and she's no worse off as a result. Cost of sales should be factored into your valuation of equity so she shouldn't be better off either, technically. 

Who paid for what, did what, earned what, etc during the marriage is largely irrelevant as it's all considered to be a shared within the marriage and it makes no odds who has their name on the paperwork. 

From my experience solicitors filled my ex-wife's head with magic about what she could get in court and she ended up worse off than if she had just negotiated a settlement so yes I wouldn't be surprised if the solicitors are exaggerating what she might get, she may also only be hearing what she wants to hear from them. It may be a negotiating tactic. 

Have you filled out the Form Es as part of mediation? If you have a decent calculation of the asset pot, split it 50/50 and work on that basis. Unless you have extenuating circumstances I think it's unlikely you'll get anything better than that as an outcome.  

With regards to the house, depending on how much the court finds appropriate to give her I may or may not be able to buy her out via savings and additional lending. As you said, in case of a sale she will be much worse off because of a hefty mortgage early repayment fee and estate agent fee. These alone I estimate to be in the 25-30k region so she'd be 15k worse off.

Add lawyers' fees and we'd both end up with a bunch less money. My lawyer charges £300+ an hour and her lawyer is just as expensive so yeah, go figure how much legal fees are going to be after a lengthy process.

FYI, we had our last mediation session yesterday afternoon. Mediation has officially failed as she unilaterally decided that she doesn't want to continue with the mediation and asked to just speak to her lawyers. We both gave the mediator Form E with extensive list of our assets but we never discussed it with him as, as I said, the mediation was cut short. Unilaterally. By her.

If your plan is to remortgage and her name to be removed probably best to check out the options for the ERC, as you may end up paying it. 

As far as my mortgage broker told me, I won't be paying ERC because I wouldn't be paying off the mortgage...the mortgage stays.

I bought my ex out last year.

If you are simply taking her name off the mortgage (assuming she is in agreement and you meet affordability), lenders usually do this at a small charge (Nationwide for example charge a £125 change of parties administration fee).

If there is additional borrowing required, you can take out something called a further advance (though lenders call this different things, Nationwide call it 'Borrow More'), which effectively acts as a second mortgage with its own interest rate and terms.

Seperate to the mortgage, you would need to complete a TR1 form stating the transfer of equity from her to you (which she will need to sign and probably wants to be done through a solicitor - around £1k).

In either case, you wouldn't need to pay ERC or entirely remortgage the property.

RobertF82 said:

gizmo111 said:

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

I had a reasonably similar situation to you in that my ex was stay at home and I worked - the court won't care (and I'm not saying they should) the starting point is 50/50. The past is largely irrelevant in divorce proceedings - the court looks at what you have now and what your needs are. 

The 50/50 thing works both ways - so if she was saving her wages and has a savings account you are potentially entitled to half of it. If she bought a car or other assets with the money ditto. 

With regards spousal maintenance I think it's not really a common thing nowadays but the court will look at what she needs, what her earning capacity is, etc and they may decide some spousal maintenance is appropriate. Or may not. If she's getting a decent lump sum as a settlement then I think it's not likely she would get maintenance.

With regards the house, there's no reason a court would force a sale if you are offering to buy her out and she's no worse off as a result. Cost of sales should be factored into your valuation of equity so she shouldn't be better off either, technically. 

Who paid for what, did what, earned what, etc during the marriage is largely irrelevant as it's all considered to be a shared within the marriage and it makes no odds who has their name on the paperwork. 

From my experience solicitors filled my ex-wife's head with magic about what she could get in court and she ended up worse off than if she had just negotiated a settlement so yes I wouldn't be surprised if the solicitors are exaggerating what she might get, she may also only be hearing what she wants to hear from them. It may be a negotiating tactic. 

Have you filled out the Form Es as part of mediation? If you have a decent calculation of the asset pot, split it 50/50 and work on that basis. Unless you have extenuating circumstances I think it's unlikely you'll get anything better than that as an outcome.  

With regards to the house, depending on how much the court finds appropriate to give her I may or may not be able to buy her out via savings and additional lending. As you said, in case of a sale she will be much worse off because of a hefty mortgage early repayment fee and estate agent fee. These alone I estimate to be in the 25-30k region so she'd be 15k worse off.

Add lawyers' fees and we'd both end up with a bunch less money. My lawyer charges £300+ an hour and her lawyer is just as expensive so yeah, go figure how much legal fees are going to be after a lengthy process.

FYI, we had our last mediation session yesterday afternoon. Mediation has officially failed as she unilaterally decided that she doesn't want to continue with the mediation and asked to just speak to her lawyers. We both gave the mediator Form E with extensive list of our assets but we never discussed it with him as, as I said, the mediation was cut short. Unilaterally. By her.

If your plan is to remortgage and her name to be removed probably best to check out the options for the ERC, as you may end up paying it. 

As far as my mortgage broker told me, I won't be paying ERC because I wouldn't be paying off the mortgage...the mortgage stays.

If the mortgage is in your sole name it's easy enough. If it's a joint mortgage then lenders (at least mine) don't take someone's name off the mortgage as they have to re-run affordability checks etc and consider it a new application. 

"If the mortgage is in your sole name it's easy enough." - you will be hard pressed to find anyone that has a house in two names, but a mortgage in one. Most people will have the house and the mortgage in both their names.

While I agree that a sole applicant would need to be proven to meet affordability criteria, I'm not sure in the sentiment behind they 'consider it a new application' - please read my post above, which the OP's broker also confirms.

I had my ex's name removed off my existing mortgage - everything else, e.g. the account number/terms/amount/repayments remained untouched, you would not notice the difference.

RobertF82

tightauldgit said:

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

I had a reasonably similar situation to you in that my ex was stay at home and I worked - the court won't care (and I'm not saying they should) the starting point is 50/50. The past is largely irrelevant in divorce proceedings - the court looks at what you have now and what your needs are. 

The 50/50 thing works both ways - so if she was saving her wages and has a savings account you are potentially entitled to half of it. If she bought a car or other assets with the money ditto. 

With regards spousal maintenance I think it's not really a common thing nowadays but the court will look at what she needs, what her earning capacity is, etc and they may decide some spousal maintenance is appropriate. Or may not. If she's getting a decent lump sum as a settlement then I think it's not likely she would get maintenance.

With regards the house, there's no reason a court would force a sale if you are offering to buy her out and she's no worse off as a result. Cost of sales should be factored into your valuation of equity so she shouldn't be better off either, technically. 

Who paid for what, did what, earned what, etc during the marriage is largely irrelevant as it's all considered to be a shared within the marriage and it makes no odds who has their name on the paperwork. 

From my experience solicitors filled my ex-wife's head with magic about what she could get in court and she ended up worse off than if she had just negotiated a settlement so yes I wouldn't be surprised if the solicitors are exaggerating what she might get, she may also only be hearing what she wants to hear from them. It may be a negotiating tactic. 

Have you filled out the Form Es as part of mediation? If you have a decent calculation of the asset pot, split it 50/50 and work on that basis. Unless you have extenuating circumstances I think it's unlikely you'll get anything better than that as an outcome.  

With regards to the house, depending on how much the court finds appropriate to give her I may or may not be able to buy her out via savings and additional lending. As you said, in case of a sale she will be much worse off because of a hefty mortgage early repayment fee and estate agent fee. These alone I estimate to be in the 25-30k region so she'd be 15k worse off.

Add lawyers' fees and we'd both end up with a bunch less money. My lawyer charges £300+ an hour and her lawyer is just as expensive so yeah, go figure how much legal fees are going to be after a lengthy process.

FYI, we had our last mediation session yesterday afternoon. Mediation has officially failed as she unilaterally decided that she doesn't want to continue with the mediation and asked to just speak to her lawyers. We both gave the mediator Form E with extensive list of our assets but we never discussed it with him as, as I said, the mediation was cut short. Unilaterally. By her.

With regards the house the equity calculation done for the Form E/court should factor in the early repayment fees, agents fees, legal fees etc regardless and split the remainder. There will be haggling over valuations anyway so 5/10k here and there might well be added or subtracted anyway but nobody should be better or worse off either way between selling or buying out. Estimate that she would get 50% of the remaining equity - can you afford to buy her out?

My ex refused mediation completely for unspecified reasons. 

I would argue that nobody should be better or worse off either way between selling or buying out. She'd be way better off financially if I bought her out.

Say we valued the house and we have an equity of 200k, I buy her out at 50%, that's 100k that she'd walk away with.

If we sell, we'd get 200k equity minus say 10k for estate agent fees minus say another 10k for early repayment charges (these are not the real values, the real values are way more scary than these). This would leave us with 180k to split so she'd get 90k.

RobertF82

Deleted_User said:

Could the reason for wanting the sale also be purely emotional? She may be struggling with the idea of you staying in the family home or thinking that the children may want to spend more time there because it is their 'home' and familiar etc. Perhaps she wants a fresh start across the board and not like she's looking backwards?

It may be emotional and if this was the reason it would be even worse. How can someone want to take away the last piece of stability in her son's life, the family home, just because she's emotional? Only an awful mother would put her own interest in front of her son's, don't you think?

Our son goes to school nearby, has friends and post school activities nearby. Let's erase all of this because me staying in the family home is too emotional for her to handle...

RobertF82

Exodi said:

tightauldgit said:

Exodi said:

RobertF82 said:

gizmo111 said:

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

I had a reasonably similar situation to you in that my ex was stay at home and I worked - the court won't care (and I'm not saying they should) the starting point is 50/50. The past is largely irrelevant in divorce proceedings - the court looks at what you have now and what your needs are. 

The 50/50 thing works both ways - so if she was saving her wages and has a savings account you are potentially entitled to half of it. If she bought a car or other assets with the money ditto. 

With regards spousal maintenance I think it's not really a common thing nowadays but the court will look at what she needs, what her earning capacity is, etc and they may decide some spousal maintenance is appropriate. Or may not. If she's getting a decent lump sum as a settlement then I think it's not likely she would get maintenance.

With regards the house, there's no reason a court would force a sale if you are offering to buy her out and she's no worse off as a result. Cost of sales should be factored into your valuation of equity so she shouldn't be better off either, technically. 

Who paid for what, did what, earned what, etc during the marriage is largely irrelevant as it's all considered to be a shared within the marriage and it makes no odds who has their name on the paperwork. 

From my experience solicitors filled my ex-wife's head with magic about what she could get in court and she ended up worse off than if she had just negotiated a settlement so yes I wouldn't be surprised if the solicitors are exaggerating what she might get, she may also only be hearing what she wants to hear from them. It may be a negotiating tactic. 

Have you filled out the Form Es as part of mediation? If you have a decent calculation of the asset pot, split it 50/50 and work on that basis. Unless you have extenuating circumstances I think it's unlikely you'll get anything better than that as an outcome.  

With regards to the house, depending on how much the court finds appropriate to give her I may or may not be able to buy her out via savings and additional lending. As you said, in case of a sale she will be much worse off because of a hefty mortgage early repayment fee and estate agent fee. These alone I estimate to be in the 25-30k region so she'd be 15k worse off.

Add lawyers' fees and we'd both end up with a bunch less money. My lawyer charges £300+ an hour and her lawyer is just as expensive so yeah, go figure how much legal fees are going to be after a lengthy process.

FYI, we had our last mediation session yesterday afternoon. Mediation has officially failed as she unilaterally decided that she doesn't want to continue with the mediation and asked to just speak to her lawyers. We both gave the mediator Form E with extensive list of our assets but we never discussed it with him as, as I said, the mediation was cut short. Unilaterally. By her.

If your plan is to remortgage and her name to be removed probably best to check out the options for the ERC, as you may end up paying it. 

As far as my mortgage broker told me, I won't be paying ERC because I wouldn't be paying off the mortgage...the mortgage stays.

I bought my ex out last year.

If you are simply taking her name off the mortgage (assuming she is in agreement and you meet affordability), lenders usually do this at a small charge (Nationwide for example charge a £125 change of parties administration fee).

If there is additional borrowing required, you can take out something called a further advance (though lenders call this different things, Nationwide call it 'Borrow More'), which effectively acts as a second mortgage with its own interest rate and terms.

Seperate to the mortgage, you would need to complete a TR1 form stating the transfer of equity from her to you (which she will need to sign and probably wants to be done through a solicitor - around £1k).

In either case, you wouldn't need to pay ERC or entirely remortgage the property.

RobertF82 said:

gizmo111 said:

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

I had a reasonably similar situation to you in that my ex was stay at home and I worked - the court won't care (and I'm not saying they should) the starting point is 50/50. The past is largely irrelevant in divorce proceedings - the court looks at what you have now and what your needs are. 

The 50/50 thing works both ways - so if she was saving her wages and has a savings account you are potentially entitled to half of it. If she bought a car or other assets with the money ditto. 

With regards spousal maintenance I think it's not really a common thing nowadays but the court will look at what she needs, what her earning capacity is, etc and they may decide some spousal maintenance is appropriate. Or may not. If she's getting a decent lump sum as a settlement then I think it's not likely she would get maintenance.

With regards the house, there's no reason a court would force a sale if you are offering to buy her out and she's no worse off as a result. Cost of sales should be factored into your valuation of equity so she shouldn't be better off either, technically. 

Who paid for what, did what, earned what, etc during the marriage is largely irrelevant as it's all considered to be a shared within the marriage and it makes no odds who has their name on the paperwork. 

From my experience solicitors filled my ex-wife's head with magic about what she could get in court and she ended up worse off than if she had just negotiated a settlement so yes I wouldn't be surprised if the solicitors are exaggerating what she might get, she may also only be hearing what she wants to hear from them. It may be a negotiating tactic. 

Have you filled out the Form Es as part of mediation? If you have a decent calculation of the asset pot, split it 50/50 and work on that basis. Unless you have extenuating circumstances I think it's unlikely you'll get anything better than that as an outcome.  

With regards to the house, depending on how much the court finds appropriate to give her I may or may not be able to buy her out via savings and additional lending. As you said, in case of a sale she will be much worse off because of a hefty mortgage early repayment fee and estate agent fee. These alone I estimate to be in the 25-30k region so she'd be 15k worse off.

Add lawyers' fees and we'd both end up with a bunch less money. My lawyer charges £300+ an hour and her lawyer is just as expensive so yeah, go figure how much legal fees are going to be after a lengthy process.

FYI, we had our last mediation session yesterday afternoon. Mediation has officially failed as she unilaterally decided that she doesn't want to continue with the mediation and asked to just speak to her lawyers. We both gave the mediator Form E with extensive list of our assets but we never discussed it with him as, as I said, the mediation was cut short. Unilaterally. By her.

If your plan is to remortgage and her name to be removed probably best to check out the options for the ERC, as you may end up paying it. 

As far as my mortgage broker told me, I won't be paying ERC because I wouldn't be paying off the mortgage...the mortgage stays.

If the mortgage is in your sole name it's easy enough. If it's a joint mortgage then lenders (at least mine) don't take someone's name off the mortgage as they have to re-run affordability checks etc and consider it a new application. 

"If the mortgage is in your sole name it's easy enough." - you will be hard pressed to find anyone that has a house in two names, but a mortgage in one. Most people will have the house and the mortgage in both their names.

This unfortunately is the case. House under both our names but mortgage only under my name. It made sense at the time because she was not working and therefore was not contributing at all financially.

Exodi

RobertF82 said:

Exodi said:

tightauldgit said:

Exodi said:

RobertF82 said:

gizmo111 said:

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

I had a reasonably similar situation to you in that my ex was stay at home and I worked - the court won't care (and I'm not saying they should) the starting point is 50/50. The past is largely irrelevant in divorce proceedings - the court looks at what you have now and what your needs are. 

The 50/50 thing works both ways - so if she was saving her wages and has a savings account you are potentially entitled to half of it. If she bought a car or other assets with the money ditto. 

With regards spousal maintenance I think it's not really a common thing nowadays but the court will look at what she needs, what her earning capacity is, etc and they may decide some spousal maintenance is appropriate. Or may not. If she's getting a decent lump sum as a settlement then I think it's not likely she would get maintenance.

With regards the house, there's no reason a court would force a sale if you are offering to buy her out and she's no worse off as a result. Cost of sales should be factored into your valuation of equity so she shouldn't be better off either, technically. 

Who paid for what, did what, earned what, etc during the marriage is largely irrelevant as it's all considered to be a shared within the marriage and it makes no odds who has their name on the paperwork. 

From my experience solicitors filled my ex-wife's head with magic about what she could get in court and she ended up worse off than if she had just negotiated a settlement so yes I wouldn't be surprised if the solicitors are exaggerating what she might get, she may also only be hearing what she wants to hear from them. It may be a negotiating tactic. 

Have you filled out the Form Es as part of mediation? If you have a decent calculation of the asset pot, split it 50/50 and work on that basis. Unless you have extenuating circumstances I think it's unlikely you'll get anything better than that as an outcome.  

With regards to the house, depending on how much the court finds appropriate to give her I may or may not be able to buy her out via savings and additional lending. As you said, in case of a sale she will be much worse off because of a hefty mortgage early repayment fee and estate agent fee. These alone I estimate to be in the 25-30k region so she'd be 15k worse off.

Add lawyers' fees and we'd both end up with a bunch less money. My lawyer charges £300+ an hour and her lawyer is just as expensive so yeah, go figure how much legal fees are going to be after a lengthy process.

FYI, we had our last mediation session yesterday afternoon. Mediation has officially failed as she unilaterally decided that she doesn't want to continue with the mediation and asked to just speak to her lawyers. We both gave the mediator Form E with extensive list of our assets but we never discussed it with him as, as I said, the mediation was cut short. Unilaterally. By her.

If your plan is to remortgage and her name to be removed probably best to check out the options for the ERC, as you may end up paying it. 

As far as my mortgage broker told me, I won't be paying ERC because I wouldn't be paying off the mortgage...the mortgage stays.

I bought my ex out last year.

If you are simply taking her name off the mortgage (assuming she is in agreement and you meet affordability), lenders usually do this at a small charge (Nationwide for example charge a £125 change of parties administration fee).

If there is additional borrowing required, you can take out something called a further advance (though lenders call this different things, Nationwide call it 'Borrow More'), which effectively acts as a second mortgage with its own interest rate and terms.

Seperate to the mortgage, you would need to complete a TR1 form stating the transfer of equity from her to you (which she will need to sign and probably wants to be done through a solicitor - around £1k).

In either case, you wouldn't need to pay ERC or entirely remortgage the property.

RobertF82 said:

gizmo111 said:

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

I had a reasonably similar situation to you in that my ex was stay at home and I worked - the court won't care (and I'm not saying they should) the starting point is 50/50. The past is largely irrelevant in divorce proceedings - the court looks at what you have now and what your needs are. 

The 50/50 thing works both ways - so if she was saving her wages and has a savings account you are potentially entitled to half of it. If she bought a car or other assets with the money ditto. 

With regards spousal maintenance I think it's not really a common thing nowadays but the court will look at what she needs, what her earning capacity is, etc and they may decide some spousal maintenance is appropriate. Or may not. If she's getting a decent lump sum as a settlement then I think it's not likely she would get maintenance.

With regards the house, there's no reason a court would force a sale if you are offering to buy her out and she's no worse off as a result. Cost of sales should be factored into your valuation of equity so she shouldn't be better off either, technically. 

Who paid for what, did what, earned what, etc during the marriage is largely irrelevant as it's all considered to be a shared within the marriage and it makes no odds who has their name on the paperwork. 

From my experience solicitors filled my ex-wife's head with magic about what she could get in court and she ended up worse off than if she had just negotiated a settlement so yes I wouldn't be surprised if the solicitors are exaggerating what she might get, she may also only be hearing what she wants to hear from them. It may be a negotiating tactic. 

Have you filled out the Form Es as part of mediation? If you have a decent calculation of the asset pot, split it 50/50 and work on that basis. Unless you have extenuating circumstances I think it's unlikely you'll get anything better than that as an outcome.  

With regards to the house, depending on how much the court finds appropriate to give her I may or may not be able to buy her out via savings and additional lending. As you said, in case of a sale she will be much worse off because of a hefty mortgage early repayment fee and estate agent fee. These alone I estimate to be in the 25-30k region so she'd be 15k worse off.

Add lawyers' fees and we'd both end up with a bunch less money. My lawyer charges £300+ an hour and her lawyer is just as expensive so yeah, go figure how much legal fees are going to be after a lengthy process.

FYI, we had our last mediation session yesterday afternoon. Mediation has officially failed as she unilaterally decided that she doesn't want to continue with the mediation and asked to just speak to her lawyers. We both gave the mediator Form E with extensive list of our assets but we never discussed it with him as, as I said, the mediation was cut short. Unilaterally. By her.

If your plan is to remortgage and her name to be removed probably best to check out the options for the ERC, as you may end up paying it. 

As far as my mortgage broker told me, I won't be paying ERC because I wouldn't be paying off the mortgage...the mortgage stays.

If the mortgage is in your sole name it's easy enough. If it's a joint mortgage then lenders (at least mine) don't take someone's name off the mortgage as they have to re-run affordability checks etc and consider it a new application. 

"If the mortgage is in your sole name it's easy enough." - you will be hard pressed to find anyone that has a house in two names, but a mortgage in one. Most people will have the house and the mortgage in both their names.

This unfortunately is the case. House under both our names but mortgage only under my name. It made sense at the time because she was not working and therefore was not contributing at all financially.

But you say she's on the deeds of the house? I didn't think many lenders were happy with this arrangement but this is a positive for you - in that it makes things simpler, all you need to do is a TR1 form without needing to bother the lender (Transfer of Equity, again probably by a solicitor) if you bought her out so the title is in your sole name (obviously this would be done as part of your wider divorce arrangement).

If additional borrowing was needed, you'd simply apply for a further advance.

Personally I'm not too sure on the logic behind "it made sense at the time because she was not working and therefore was not contributing at all financially" as whether someone is on the mortgage or not is for all intents and purposes irrelevant to their ownership of the property. You usually see someone on both the deeds and mortgage, or off both the deeds and mortgage - on one but not the other is uncommon. I think one plausible reason for this would be if they expected their partner to have a negative effect (rather than neutral) on the application - e.g. their credit report is damning.

But I've digressed; it's irrelevant to your situation.

DE_612183

RobertF82 said:

Deleted_User said:

Could the reason for wanting the sale also be purely emotional? She may be struggling with the idea of you staying in the family home or thinking that the children may want to spend more time there because it is their 'home' and familiar etc. Perhaps she wants a fresh start across the board and not like she's looking backwards?

It may be emotional and if this was the reason it would be even worse. How can someone want to take away the last piece of stability in her son's life, the family home, just because she's emotional? Only an awful mother would put her own interest in front of her son's, don't you think?

Our son goes to school nearby, has friends and post school activities nearby. Let's erase all of this because me staying in the family home is too emotional for her to handle...

For most people there is nothing "un-emotional" about divorce, yes it may be better for your son - what happens if she in someway finds enough money to buy you out?

DE_612183

Exodi said:

RobertF82 said:

Exodi said:

tightauldgit said:

Exodi said:

RobertF82 said:

gizmo111 said:

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

I had a reasonably similar situation to you in that my ex was stay at home and I worked - the court won't care (and I'm not saying they should) the starting point is 50/50. The past is largely irrelevant in divorce proceedings - the court looks at what you have now and what your needs are. 

The 50/50 thing works both ways - so if she was saving her wages and has a savings account you are potentially entitled to half of it. If she bought a car or other assets with the money ditto. 

With regards spousal maintenance I think it's not really a common thing nowadays but the court will look at what she needs, what her earning capacity is, etc and they may decide some spousal maintenance is appropriate. Or may not. If she's getting a decent lump sum as a settlement then I think it's not likely she would get maintenance.

With regards the house, there's no reason a court would force a sale if you are offering to buy her out and she's no worse off as a result. Cost of sales should be factored into your valuation of equity so she shouldn't be better off either, technically. 

Who paid for what, did what, earned what, etc during the marriage is largely irrelevant as it's all considered to be a shared within the marriage and it makes no odds who has their name on the paperwork. 

From my experience solicitors filled my ex-wife's head with magic about what she could get in court and she ended up worse off than if she had just negotiated a settlement so yes I wouldn't be surprised if the solicitors are exaggerating what she might get, she may also only be hearing what she wants to hear from them. It may be a negotiating tactic. 

Have you filled out the Form Es as part of mediation? If you have a decent calculation of the asset pot, split it 50/50 and work on that basis. Unless you have extenuating circumstances I think it's unlikely you'll get anything better than that as an outcome.  

With regards to the house, depending on how much the court finds appropriate to give her I may or may not be able to buy her out via savings and additional lending. As you said, in case of a sale she will be much worse off because of a hefty mortgage early repayment fee and estate agent fee. These alone I estimate to be in the 25-30k region so she'd be 15k worse off.

Add lawyers' fees and we'd both end up with a bunch less money. My lawyer charges £300+ an hour and her lawyer is just as expensive so yeah, go figure how much legal fees are going to be after a lengthy process.

FYI, we had our last mediation session yesterday afternoon. Mediation has officially failed as she unilaterally decided that she doesn't want to continue with the mediation and asked to just speak to her lawyers. We both gave the mediator Form E with extensive list of our assets but we never discussed it with him as, as I said, the mediation was cut short. Unilaterally. By her.

If your plan is to remortgage and her name to be removed probably best to check out the options for the ERC, as you may end up paying it. 

As far as my mortgage broker told me, I won't be paying ERC because I wouldn't be paying off the mortgage...the mortgage stays.

I bought my ex out last year.

If you are simply taking her name off the mortgage (assuming she is in agreement and you meet affordability), lenders usually do this at a small charge (Nationwide for example charge a £125 change of parties administration fee).

If there is additional borrowing required, you can take out something called a further advance (though lenders call this different things, Nationwide call it 'Borrow More'), which effectively acts as a second mortgage with its own interest rate and terms.

Seperate to the mortgage, you would need to complete a TR1 form stating the transfer of equity from her to you (which she will need to sign and probably wants to be done through a solicitor - around £1k).

In either case, you wouldn't need to pay ERC or entirely remortgage the property.

RobertF82 said:

gizmo111 said:

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

I had a reasonably similar situation to you in that my ex was stay at home and I worked - the court won't care (and I'm not saying they should) the starting point is 50/50. The past is largely irrelevant in divorce proceedings - the court looks at what you have now and what your needs are. 

The 50/50 thing works both ways - so if she was saving her wages and has a savings account you are potentially entitled to half of it. If she bought a car or other assets with the money ditto. 

With regards spousal maintenance I think it's not really a common thing nowadays but the court will look at what she needs, what her earning capacity is, etc and they may decide some spousal maintenance is appropriate. Or may not. If she's getting a decent lump sum as a settlement then I think it's not likely she would get maintenance.

With regards the house, there's no reason a court would force a sale if you are offering to buy her out and she's no worse off as a result. Cost of sales should be factored into your valuation of equity so she shouldn't be better off either, technically. 

Who paid for what, did what, earned what, etc during the marriage is largely irrelevant as it's all considered to be a shared within the marriage and it makes no odds who has their name on the paperwork. 

From my experience solicitors filled my ex-wife's head with magic about what she could get in court and she ended up worse off than if she had just negotiated a settlement so yes I wouldn't be surprised if the solicitors are exaggerating what she might get, she may also only be hearing what she wants to hear from them. It may be a negotiating tactic. 

Have you filled out the Form Es as part of mediation? If you have a decent calculation of the asset pot, split it 50/50 and work on that basis. Unless you have extenuating circumstances I think it's unlikely you'll get anything better than that as an outcome.  

With regards to the house, depending on how much the court finds appropriate to give her I may or may not be able to buy her out via savings and additional lending. As you said, in case of a sale she will be much worse off because of a hefty mortgage early repayment fee and estate agent fee. These alone I estimate to be in the 25-30k region so she'd be 15k worse off.

Add lawyers' fees and we'd both end up with a bunch less money. My lawyer charges £300+ an hour and her lawyer is just as expensive so yeah, go figure how much legal fees are going to be after a lengthy process.

FYI, we had our last mediation session yesterday afternoon. Mediation has officially failed as she unilaterally decided that she doesn't want to continue with the mediation and asked to just speak to her lawyers. We both gave the mediator Form E with extensive list of our assets but we never discussed it with him as, as I said, the mediation was cut short. Unilaterally. By her.

If your plan is to remortgage and her name to be removed probably best to check out the options for the ERC, as you may end up paying it. 

As far as my mortgage broker told me, I won't be paying ERC because I wouldn't be paying off the mortgage...the mortgage stays.

If the mortgage is in your sole name it's easy enough. If it's a joint mortgage then lenders (at least mine) don't take someone's name off the mortgage as they have to re-run affordability checks etc and consider it a new application. 

"If the mortgage is in your sole name it's easy enough." - you will be hard pressed to find anyone that has a house in two names, but a mortgage in one. Most people will have the house and the mortgage in both their names.

This unfortunately is the case. House under both our names but mortgage only under my name. It made sense at the time because she was not working and therefore was not contributing at all financially.

But you say she's on the deeds of the house? I didn't think many lenders were happy with this arrangement but this is a positive for you - in that it makes things simpler, all you need to do is a TR1 form without needing to bother the lender (Transfer of Equity, again probably by a solicitor) if you bought her out so the title is in your sole name (obviously this would be done as part of your wider divorce arrangement).

If additional borrowing was needed, you'd simply apply for a further advance.

Personally I'm not too sure on the logic behind "it made sense at the time because she was not working and therefore was not contributing at all financially" as whether someone is on the mortgage or not is for all intents and purposes irrelevant to their ownership of the property. You usually see someone on both the deeds and mortgage, or off both the deeds and mortgage - on one but not the other is uncommon. I think one plausible reason for this would be if they expected their partner to have a negative effect (rather than neutral) on the application - e.g. their credit report is damning.

But I've digressed; it's irrelevant to your situation.

I don't get that either - what you are saying is that the house is owned 50/50, but if the mortgage doesn't get paid - how does the lender repossess half a house?

tightauldgit

Exodi said:

tightauldgit said:

Exodi said:

RobertF82 said:

gizmo111 said:

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

I had a reasonably similar situation to you in that my ex was stay at home and I worked - the court won't care (and I'm not saying they should) the starting point is 50/50. The past is largely irrelevant in divorce proceedings - the court looks at what you have now and what your needs are. 

The 50/50 thing works both ways - so if she was saving her wages and has a savings account you are potentially entitled to half of it. If she bought a car or other assets with the money ditto. 

With regards spousal maintenance I think it's not really a common thing nowadays but the court will look at what she needs, what her earning capacity is, etc and they may decide some spousal maintenance is appropriate. Or may not. If she's getting a decent lump sum as a settlement then I think it's not likely she would get maintenance.

With regards the house, there's no reason a court would force a sale if you are offering to buy her out and she's no worse off as a result. Cost of sales should be factored into your valuation of equity so she shouldn't be better off either, technically. 

Who paid for what, did what, earned what, etc during the marriage is largely irrelevant as it's all considered to be a shared within the marriage and it makes no odds who has their name on the paperwork. 

From my experience solicitors filled my ex-wife's head with magic about what she could get in court and she ended up worse off than if she had just negotiated a settlement so yes I wouldn't be surprised if the solicitors are exaggerating what she might get, she may also only be hearing what she wants to hear from them. It may be a negotiating tactic. 

Have you filled out the Form Es as part of mediation? If you have a decent calculation of the asset pot, split it 50/50 and work on that basis. Unless you have extenuating circumstances I think it's unlikely you'll get anything better than that as an outcome.  

With regards to the house, depending on how much the court finds appropriate to give her I may or may not be able to buy her out via savings and additional lending. As you said, in case of a sale she will be much worse off because of a hefty mortgage early repayment fee and estate agent fee. These alone I estimate to be in the 25-30k region so she'd be 15k worse off.

Add lawyers' fees and we'd both end up with a bunch less money. My lawyer charges £300+ an hour and her lawyer is just as expensive so yeah, go figure how much legal fees are going to be after a lengthy process.

FYI, we had our last mediation session yesterday afternoon. Mediation has officially failed as she unilaterally decided that she doesn't want to continue with the mediation and asked to just speak to her lawyers. We both gave the mediator Form E with extensive list of our assets but we never discussed it with him as, as I said, the mediation was cut short. Unilaterally. By her.

If your plan is to remortgage and her name to be removed probably best to check out the options for the ERC, as you may end up paying it. 

As far as my mortgage broker told me, I won't be paying ERC because I wouldn't be paying off the mortgage...the mortgage stays.

I bought my ex out last year.

If you are simply taking her name off the mortgage (assuming she is in agreement and you meet affordability), lenders usually do this at a small charge (Nationwide for example charge a £125 change of parties administration fee).

If there is additional borrowing required, you can take out something called a further advance (though lenders call this different things, Nationwide call it 'Borrow More'), which effectively acts as a second mortgage with its own interest rate and terms.

Seperate to the mortgage, you would need to complete a TR1 form stating the transfer of equity from her to you (which she will need to sign and probably wants to be done through a solicitor - around £1k).

In either case, you wouldn't need to pay ERC or entirely remortgage the property.

RobertF82 said:

gizmo111 said:

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

I had a reasonably similar situation to you in that my ex was stay at home and I worked - the court won't care (and I'm not saying they should) the starting point is 50/50. The past is largely irrelevant in divorce proceedings - the court looks at what you have now and what your needs are. 

The 50/50 thing works both ways - so if she was saving her wages and has a savings account you are potentially entitled to half of it. If she bought a car or other assets with the money ditto. 

With regards spousal maintenance I think it's not really a common thing nowadays but the court will look at what she needs, what her earning capacity is, etc and they may decide some spousal maintenance is appropriate. Or may not. If she's getting a decent lump sum as a settlement then I think it's not likely she would get maintenance.

With regards the house, there's no reason a court would force a sale if you are offering to buy her out and she's no worse off as a result. Cost of sales should be factored into your valuation of equity so she shouldn't be better off either, technically. 

Who paid for what, did what, earned what, etc during the marriage is largely irrelevant as it's all considered to be a shared within the marriage and it makes no odds who has their name on the paperwork. 

From my experience solicitors filled my ex-wife's head with magic about what she could get in court and she ended up worse off than if she had just negotiated a settlement so yes I wouldn't be surprised if the solicitors are exaggerating what she might get, she may also only be hearing what she wants to hear from them. It may be a negotiating tactic. 

Have you filled out the Form Es as part of mediation? If you have a decent calculation of the asset pot, split it 50/50 and work on that basis. Unless you have extenuating circumstances I think it's unlikely you'll get anything better than that as an outcome.  

With regards to the house, depending on how much the court finds appropriate to give her I may or may not be able to buy her out via savings and additional lending. As you said, in case of a sale she will be much worse off because of a hefty mortgage early repayment fee and estate agent fee. These alone I estimate to be in the 25-30k region so she'd be 15k worse off.

Add lawyers' fees and we'd both end up with a bunch less money. My lawyer charges £300+ an hour and her lawyer is just as expensive so yeah, go figure how much legal fees are going to be after a lengthy process.

FYI, we had our last mediation session yesterday afternoon. Mediation has officially failed as she unilaterally decided that she doesn't want to continue with the mediation and asked to just speak to her lawyers. We both gave the mediator Form E with extensive list of our assets but we never discussed it with him as, as I said, the mediation was cut short. Unilaterally. By her.

If your plan is to remortgage and her name to be removed probably best to check out the options for the ERC, as you may end up paying it. 

As far as my mortgage broker told me, I won't be paying ERC because I wouldn't be paying off the mortgage...the mortgage stays.

If the mortgage is in your sole name it's easy enough. If it's a joint mortgage then lenders (at least mine) don't take someone's name off the mortgage as they have to re-run affordability checks etc and consider it a new application. 

"If the mortgage is in your sole name it's easy enough." - you will be hard pressed to find anyone that has a house in two names, but a mortgage in one. Most people will have the house and the mortgage in both their names.

While I agree that a sole applicant would need to be proven to meet affordability criteria, I'm not sure in the sentiment behind they 'consider it a new application' - please read my post above, which the OP's broker also confirms.

I had my ex's name removed off my existing mortgage - everything else, e.g. the account number/terms/amount/repayments remained untouched, you would not notice the difference.

Can only speak from my own experience of trying to do it. Bank refused to take my ex's name off the mortgage and said it would be considered a new mortgage application (which I wasn't able to meet the criteria for due to a change in circumstances). So I bought my ex out of her equity and had her removed from the deeds while she remained as a joint party on the mortgage (with a commitment from me to take her off the mortgage as soon as I could). May well depend on your lender but it's not always as straightforward as 'just take her off the mortgage'. I thought it would be exactly that since my ex-wife had no earnings and made no payment towards the mortgage anyway but it wasn't.   

tightauldgit

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

I had a reasonably similar situation to you in that my ex was stay at home and I worked - the court won't care (and I'm not saying they should) the starting point is 50/50. The past is largely irrelevant in divorce proceedings - the court looks at what you have now and what your needs are. 

The 50/50 thing works both ways - so if she was saving her wages and has a savings account you are potentially entitled to half of it. If she bought a car or other assets with the money ditto. 

With regards spousal maintenance I think it's not really a common thing nowadays but the court will look at what she needs, what her earning capacity is, etc and they may decide some spousal maintenance is appropriate. Or may not. If she's getting a decent lump sum as a settlement then I think it's not likely she would get maintenance.

With regards the house, there's no reason a court would force a sale if you are offering to buy her out and she's no worse off as a result. Cost of sales should be factored into your valuation of equity so she shouldn't be better off either, technically. 

Who paid for what, did what, earned what, etc during the marriage is largely irrelevant as it's all considered to be a shared within the marriage and it makes no odds who has their name on the paperwork. 

From my experience solicitors filled my ex-wife's head with magic about what she could get in court and she ended up worse off than if she had just negotiated a settlement so yes I wouldn't be surprised if the solicitors are exaggerating what she might get, she may also only be hearing what she wants to hear from them. It may be a negotiating tactic. 

Have you filled out the Form Es as part of mediation? If you have a decent calculation of the asset pot, split it 50/50 and work on that basis. Unless you have extenuating circumstances I think it's unlikely you'll get anything better than that as an outcome.  

With regards to the house, depending on how much the court finds appropriate to give her I may or may not be able to buy her out via savings and additional lending. As you said, in case of a sale she will be much worse off because of a hefty mortgage early repayment fee and estate agent fee. These alone I estimate to be in the 25-30k region so she'd be 15k worse off.

Add lawyers' fees and we'd both end up with a bunch less money. My lawyer charges £300+ an hour and her lawyer is just as expensive so yeah, go figure how much legal fees are going to be after a lengthy process.

FYI, we had our last mediation session yesterday afternoon. Mediation has officially failed as she unilaterally decided that she doesn't want to continue with the mediation and asked to just speak to her lawyers. We both gave the mediator Form E with extensive list of our assets but we never discussed it with him as, as I said, the mediation was cut short. Unilaterally. By her.

With regards the house the equity calculation done for the Form E/court should factor in the early repayment fees, agents fees, legal fees etc regardless and split the remainder. There will be haggling over valuations anyway so 5/10k here and there might well be added or subtracted anyway but nobody should be better or worse off either way between selling or buying out. Estimate that she would get 50% of the remaining equity - can you afford to buy her out?

My ex refused mediation completely for unspecified reasons. 

I would argue that nobody should be better or worse off either way between selling or buying out. She'd be way better off financially if I bought her out.

Say we valued the house and we have an equity of 200k, I buy her out at 50%, that's 100k that she'd walk away with.

If we sell, we'd get 200k equity minus say 10k for estate agent fees minus say another 10k for early repayment charges (these are not the real values, the real values are way more scary than these). This would leave us with 180k to split so she'd get 90k.

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

I had a reasonably similar situation to you in that my ex was stay at home and I worked - the court won't care (and I'm not saying they should) the starting point is 50/50. The past is largely irrelevant in divorce proceedings - the court looks at what you have now and what your needs are. 

The 50/50 thing works both ways - so if she was saving her wages and has a savings account you are potentially entitled to half of it. If she bought a car or other assets with the money ditto. 

With regards spousal maintenance I think it's not really a common thing nowadays but the court will look at what she needs, what her earning capacity is, etc and they may decide some spousal maintenance is appropriate. Or may not. If she's getting a decent lump sum as a settlement then I think it's not likely she would get maintenance.

With regards the house, there's no reason a court would force a sale if you are offering to buy her out and she's no worse off as a result. Cost of sales should be factored into your valuation of equity so she shouldn't be better off either, technically. 

Who paid for what, did what, earned what, etc during the marriage is largely irrelevant as it's all considered to be a shared within the marriage and it makes no odds who has their name on the paperwork. 

From my experience solicitors filled my ex-wife's head with magic about what she could get in court and she ended up worse off than if she had just negotiated a settlement so yes I wouldn't be surprised if the solicitors are exaggerating what she might get, she may also only be hearing what she wants to hear from them. It may be a negotiating tactic. 

Have you filled out the Form Es as part of mediation? If you have a decent calculation of the asset pot, split it 50/50 and work on that basis. Unless you have extenuating circumstances I think it's unlikely you'll get anything better than that as an outcome.  

With regards to the house, depending on how much the court finds appropriate to give her I may or may not be able to buy her out via savings and additional lending. As you said, in case of a sale she will be much worse off because of a hefty mortgage early repayment fee and estate agent fee. These alone I estimate to be in the 25-30k region so she'd be 15k worse off.

Add lawyers' fees and we'd both end up with a bunch less money. My lawyer charges £300+ an hour and her lawyer is just as expensive so yeah, go figure how much legal fees are going to be after a lengthy process.

FYI, we had our last mediation session yesterday afternoon. Mediation has officially failed as she unilaterally decided that she doesn't want to continue with the mediation and asked to just speak to her lawyers. We both gave the mediator Form E with extensive list of our assets but we never discussed it with him as, as I said, the mediation was cut short. Unilaterally. By her.

With regards the house the equity calculation done for the Form E/court should factor in the early repayment fees, agents fees, legal fees etc regardless and split the remainder. There will be haggling over valuations anyway so 5/10k here and there might well be added or subtracted anyway but nobody should be better or worse off either way between selling or buying out. Estimate that she would get 50% of the remaining equity - can you afford to buy her out?

My ex refused mediation completely for unspecified reasons. 

I would argue that nobody should be better or worse off either way between selling or buying out. She'd be way better off financially if I bought her out.

Say we valued the house and we have an equity of 200k, I buy her out at 50%, that's 100k that she'd walk away with.

If we sell, we'd get 200k equity minus say 10k for estate agent fees minus say another 10k for early repayment charges (these are not the real values, the real values are way more scary than these). This would leave us with 180k to split so she'd get 90k.

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

RobertF82 said:

tightauldgit said:

I had a reasonably similar situation to you in that my ex was stay at home and I worked - the court won't care (and I'm not saying they should) the starting point is 50/50. The past is largely irrelevant in divorce proceedings - the court looks at what you have now and what your needs are. 

The 50/50 thing works both ways - so if she was saving her wages and has a savings account you are potentially entitled to half of it. If she bought a car or other assets with the money ditto. 

With regards spousal maintenance I think it's not really a common thing nowadays but the court will look at what she needs, what her earning capacity is, etc and they may decide some spousal maintenance is appropriate. Or may not. If she's getting a decent lump sum as a settlement then I think it's not likely she would get maintenance.

With regards the house, there's no reason a court would force a sale if you are offering to buy her out and she's no worse off as a result. Cost of sales should be factored into your valuation of equity so she shouldn't be better off either, technically. 

Who paid for what, did what, earned what, etc during the marriage is largely irrelevant as it's all considered to be a shared within the marriage and it makes no odds who has their name on the paperwork. 

From my experience solicitors filled my ex-wife's head with magic about what she could get in court and she ended up worse off than if she had just negotiated a settlement so yes I wouldn't be surprised if the solicitors are exaggerating what she might get, she may also only be hearing what she wants to hear from them. It may be a negotiating tactic. 

Have you filled out the Form Es as part of mediation? If you have a decent calculation of the asset pot, split it 50/50 and work on that basis. Unless you have extenuating circumstances I think it's unlikely you'll get anything better than that as an outcome.  

With regards to the house, depending on how much the court finds appropriate to give her I may or may not be able to buy her out via savings and additional lending. As you said, in case of a sale she will be much worse off because of a hefty mortgage early repayment fee and estate agent fee. These alone I estimate to be in the 25-30k region so she'd be 15k worse off.

Add lawyers' fees and we'd both end up with a bunch less money. My lawyer charges £300+ an hour and her lawyer is just as expensive so yeah, go figure how much legal fees are going to be after a lengthy process.

FYI, we had our last mediation session yesterday afternoon. Mediation has officially failed as she unilaterally decided that she doesn't want to continue with the mediation and asked to just speak to her lawyers. We both gave the mediator Form E with extensive list of our assets but we never discussed it with him as, as I said, the mediation was cut short. Unilaterally. By her.

With regards the house the equity calculation done for the Form E/court should factor in the early repayment fees, agents fees, legal fees etc regardless and split the remainder. There will be haggling over valuations anyway so 5/10k here and there might well be added or subtracted anyway but nobody should be better or worse off either way between selling or buying out. Estimate that she would get 50% of the remaining equity - can you afford to buy her out?

My ex refused mediation completely for unspecified reasons. 

I would argue that nobody should be better or worse off either way between selling or buying out. She'd be way better off financially if I bought her out.

Say we valued the house and we have an equity of 200k, I buy her out at 50%, that's 100k that she'd walk away with.

If we sell, we'd get 200k equity minus say 10k for estate agent fees minus say another 10k for early repayment charges (these are not the real values, the real values are way more scary than these). This would leave us with 180k to split so she'd get 90k.

No, the equity in the house should be calculated less fees in either case. So if the equity from a sale is 180k then you buy her out at 90k. Obviously you can agree to pay her more but if you look at the Form E's they will deduct the cost of selling from your equity in their calculation. Which makes sense because the only way to get the equity in reality is to actually sell the property. 

As far as a court is concerned the default would be that you sell the property and split the proceeds so you both get £90k. So the buy out value would be £90k also. I don't think any court would force you to sell the house if you were willing to buy the other party out at the same valuation. 

My sense on it is if your ex is refusing further mediation then it's going to go to court (at least to the second hearing probably) so get the process started as soon as possible and make the application if you haven't already. Make them an offer based on a 50/50 split of the assets in the Form E. The more you appear to be reasonable in the negotiations the better it will go in court.  

Jude57

I hesitate to point this out again but the 'savings' the OP wants to use to buy his wife's interest in the former matrimonial home aren't his alone to do with as he pleases. They are part of the marital assets and as such, must be dealt with along with all other marital assets such as the house, pensions, cars etc. If, once that division is either agreed between the parties or ordered by the Court, the OP has sufficient to buy out his wife's interest, the Court can order that, and certainly, the best interests of the child will be paramount.

OP, have you yet instructed your own solicitor? Several people have asked the question but I can't see that you've responded.