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Working out finances before we we married

Hi, firstly we have no children. We've been married nearly 4 years have a joint mortgage for our home which we bought 10 years ago and only owe £40k on it. My wife has never worked and ive always paid all of the mortgage, bills, etc it we had a mortgage of £100k when we got married, i also paid an additional £25k from an inheritance before we were married. similar with my pension, it was worth £30k when married an £140k now. other savings/assets/cars are easy to work out. im unsure where to start the conversation about splitting the finances. 

Comments

  • Splitting finances for what purposes? They are all marital assets are you planning to divorce? 
  • Hi, sorry, yes we are planning on getting divorced and haven't had the discussion about finances yet. Im unsure how we start the conversation, is everything 50/50?
  • esquiremd said:
    Hi, sorry, yes we are planning on getting divorced and haven't had the discussion about finances yet. Im unsure how we start the conversation, is everything 50/50?
    That would be the starting point but everything is up for negotiation if this is an amicable separation.
  • yeah starting point would be 50/50 split of total pot. 

    Not sure if 4 years might be considered a short marriage so you may have an argument for taking pre-married positions into account. 

    You probably want to speak to a solicitor to get some advice 
  • TBagpuss
    TBagpuss Posts: 11,236 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Normally when looking at the length of the marriage the period of any cohabitation before marriage would also be relevant, so if you bought a house and moved in together 10 years ago it would be seen as a 10 year relationship. 4 years would be seen as a fairly short marriage but  this would probably be seen as longer sue to having lived together first .
    Assuming that you own the house as Joint Tenants, and didn't have a declaration of Trust either when you bought or when you paid the additional sum then the starting presumption is 50/50 on the house . Pension - if you can show that part of the pension was built up before you got together then you can argue that only the relevant proportion is taken into account - normally this is done by looking at the number of years you've been paying in, not how much it was worth when you got together, so if you have been paying into the pension for 20 years of which you have been together for 10 and married for 4, you might argue that only 50% of the pension (the 10 years since you moved in) should be taken into account, so she would be entitled to 25% rather than 50% of the whole, or even that only the last4 years, so around 20% of the pension, should count so her claim would be for 10%.

    A court would also consider your respective needs - her need may be higher than yours if you have higher income and therefore greater borrowing capacity, but unless there is a good reason, such as disability, for her not working, I suspect a court would be reluctant to give her more than 50%

    You and she can agree what you want, so you can certainly propose that you should have more of the equity to reflect your higher original deposit and the extra money from your inheritance. 
    All posts are my personal opinion, not formal advice Always get proper, professional advice (particularly about anything legal!)
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