What bills am I legally still having to pay aswell as CSA

LeeDGdelboy

Hello, getting a divorce and have a question about bills
Ex wife is in the house and has full occupancy of this. She is refusing to sell it. It is mortgage and I understand that we both need to keep paying for this. She cannot afford it without relying on benefits as is part time.
I pay CSA aswell for 2 children.
There is also a car which is in my name as the leaseholder but she has also taken. I have 0 use of this now and I am unable to get it back off of her. She is saying I need to pay 50% per month of this.
There was a missing months payment on the car that I need to cover In full because some of the bills got messed up. I have not done this yet. She is also making me pay for the cancelled water and electrics bill balance. This is about £650 all in and is a significant amount of money. I have not paid yet because I feel it was in a house where we both were using it.
Is there anything I can do to get her to pay for the car, and bills owed? What am I legally at a minimum obliged to pay?
She is claiming poverty, and gets UC yet as part of mediation I have seen the bank accounts. Surely she cannot get to keep a house that is reliant on benefits to be able to afford
There really is something wrong with the system in this country

MyRealNameToo

There are various angles at which this can be looked at… the most simple is the contractual one… if your name is on the bill then you are the one liable to pay for it and face the consequences if its not paid. If its in joint names then in most cases you will be equally liable for the full amount each (not a strict 50/50) etc and both will face consequences if the bills arent kept up to date.

There is then the secondary element of the divorce, splitting of assets, maintenance etc. That may consider matters like this or it may not, things tend to be more done in the round.

The car is probably the more problematic as you may well be breaching the agreement if you are no longer in control of the vehicle, most lease/car finance dont allow "fronting" where the finance is in one persons name but someone else is the keeper and sole user. Plus even if you agreed to keep paying it, are they going to give it back at the end of the lease?

elsien

You really would be better off keeping all this on your original thread so that the context is already there rather than keeping starting new ones.

The house issue has been covered to a degree already.

tacpot12

What options do you have with the car lease, in terms of being able to return the car (if you can recover it)?

Does your ex need a car to take the children to school? I mean 'really' need a car because the school is more than a mile away. You always need to think about the impact on your children even if your ex is being unreasonable.

My feeling is that if you can return the car, then you can start worrying about how you get it back. If you can't return it yet, you need to see advice from the leasing company.

To my mind, you shouldn't be paying any bills other than the mortgage, half the home insurance and the lease of the car (if you have the use of the car). Council Tax, electricity, gas, water, TV license, etc. should really be being paid by the person who is living in the property and using the utilities, but the Consent order from the court may say otherwise!

When I got divorced, it was very difficult, but we were able to agree on a Consent order based on our respective household budgets. What we did was work out what each of our costs were and what our income was. When we reviewed both budgets it was clear that there was a shortfall in both of them - neither of us could actually afford to live seperately, but we had to, so we agreed that we would both have the same shortfall in our budgets.

The calculation might work something like this…

Say her income is £2,500 pcm including benefits and CMS.

Then say that you give her nothing further except for paying half the mortgage. If her cost of living (including paying her half of the mortgage) is £3,000, then she has a £500 shortfall.

If your income is £2,500 pcm and your cost of living (including all your bills, rent and paying half the mortgage) is £2,600, then you have a £100 shortfall.

The total you are short of is £600. Split in two, that's £300 each, so the consent order might order you to pay £200 MORE than half of the mortgage so that you are both having to live with a shortfall of £300 on your budget. That is about as fair as the court can make it, but you will have to argue why this is a fair settlement if she really doesn't see it as fair. It might be a starting point for negotiations.