Disabled child being used to get more cash

Hi all, my son is disabled and for this my ex receives a stack of benefits. However she is trying to wangle "deferred spousal maintenance" (through a nominal order) or an over generous split of the equity (I have offered her about 70%) because she is trying to create uncertainty about his future. I love my son and will support him forever and have already told her I will continue to pay "CSA" at a level of £400 or more for as long as he lives with her regardless of how old he is. However he is 16 and in all likelyhood will leave home at 19 for a residential placement - and she is scared she will lose his benefits and my cash when he moves out - hence the nominal order which I am convinced she will try to activate once both children leave home

I am prepared to sign any piece of paper the court asks for to say that I will continue to support him for the rest of his life but I DON''T want to pay off my ex so she can avoid returning to full time work after he has left home. However the courts only have control of spousal maintenance and equity. Any advice on what I can do here to prevent my ex using our son as an extended meal ticket? I am likely to self rep at final hearing so is there anything I can say to the judge to prevent this?

Most Consent Orders do contain a nominal order which is never enforced I understand your reluctance to have it but you may find yourself in the situation that unless it''s included a court won''t grant it.

It is there as a safety net mainly for the children not your wife should she fall on hard times.

If you child moves into some kind if indepentant living accommodation he will make his own application for funds to support himself. At some stage anyway he may if able to take some control over his finances.

These orders are very rarely enforced.

Thanks for the reply. I''ve gone backwards and forwards on this one - my "legal team" advised me to basically give away virtually all the equity in order to avoid the nominal order but then one advisor basically said as you did - its going to happen, but don''t worry about it.

Basically the deal is this - my ex has an effective income of roughly £2,900 from all sources (that''s not a misprint). She works 16 hours a week. If my son stays at home, his benefits remain obviously. When he leaves and my daughter stays she will have an income of about £1,900 IF she moves into a low paid full time job, which is reasonable as my daughter will be 16. However when my daughter leaves she will basically be on whatever she can earn. She''s an ex lawyer - but to be frank - she''s lazy - she left work 15 years ago and only returned to work because she had to following the separation. Now at that point, if she has applied her excess cash to her mortgage she will be down to about £50,000 on a 4 bed house worth £200,000. But she will likely try to argue she can''t find full time work at that time and come after me for money.

That being said - I''d rather have a deposit now so I can buy my own house and perhaps worry about the nominal order later rather than give everything away now.

I''ve already made a generous without prejudice order (which she has ignored - and its been 6 weeks). Is it possible to have a term order that ends when both children have left home? Because perhaps I could put this in an open offer to show I am covering the kids, just not her?

Hi and welcome to wiki,

Having read all your posts, it is not possible to advise on possible outcomes as, there is not enough information.

If you can tell members more, we will be better able to assist.

Respective ages.

Length of marriage and any pre-cohabitation.

Number of children and ages.

Respective incomes.

Value of marital home and outstanding mortgage.

value of any respective pensions (CETV''s)

Value of any other assets held either in joint or sole name.

Liabilities/debts either joint or sole names.

Health of all parties.

Best wishes,

NWTT.

OK, here goes:
Respective ages.
me 47, her 50

Length of marriage and any pre-cohabitation.
Marriage ended 3.5 years ago, before that 14 years married, 3 years cohabit

Number of children and ages.
2 - 16 (disabled) & 13

Respective incomes.
Me - £4,400 but after CSA of £635 and joint debt payments of £344 - £3,400. If debt is cleared, about £3,800

Her - £2,885 from all sources though about half is benefits (mostly for our son)

Value of marital home and outstanding mortgage.
About £130 K equity after sale

value of any respective pensions (CETV''s)
Pensions are equivalent in terms of benefits (hers will pay £4,400 mine will pay £3,900 - just worked this out and they are essentially the same)

Value of any other assets held either in joint or sole name.
1 BTL property - positive equity of £23,000. She wants to live in this house

7 other BTL - total negative equity of about £80,000 (based on official valuations she insisted we have)

Liabilities/debts either joint or sole names.
£15,000 debt in my name but can be shown to be a joint debt (we agreed I would pay off a joint overdraft 2 years ago)

Health of all parties.
Good

I also have the children 2.5 nights a week and recently offered to have them for 3.

If it wasn''t for our disabled child this would be relatively straightforward however my ex is trying to use that as an excuse for getting a far higher equity split now. She also does not want the BTL properties but she doesn''t want me to benefit from them in the future.

Her needs are, at most, around £1800-£2000 and she will have the same or higher standard of living as she did in the marriage for at least the next 3 years.


My last offer:
I take on the 15K debt, and the 7 BTL properties at negative £80K
She moves into the house with £23K equity & takes 65% of the FMH equity - this leaves her with a mortgage of £75K on a house worth £190K. Interest payments will be £220 per month
I take 35% of FMH
I pension share £35K of my fund - she can cash this in at age 55 and either take an income of £380 per month till retirement or pay down the mortgage.
I pay an extra £100 per month child support over and above the £635 to pay for a play group our son attends

With her income she can clear perhaps £600 per month from the mortgage, so with that and the £35K in 5 years she will be left with about £15-20K mortgage at 55.

its been 6 weeks since the offer was made and there have been no responses - she has made 2 offers, both wildly different and both impossible to meet (one included me taking on an extra £40K in debt so she could be mortgage free)

She doesn''t want Spousal maintenance anymore - at least not whilst the children are at home because it will be take out of Universal Credit. She does however want a nominal order because at 55 both children leave home and she loses all of their benefits so she wants to come after me I believe at that point.
I think she wants me to take on all the risk and cost of the BTL portfolio and then, in 5 years when she is no longer getting UC she will "activate" the nominal order and come after me for income from the properties if they have recovered.

As far as the BTL properties go - she can have them now if she wants them - but I do not think its fair that I take them on now for 5 years so that she can benefit later.

I relation to pension value the value if the pension pot is relevant not the income from it and what kind if pension ie final salary scheme etc.

As all assets will be added to the FMH. Some are liquid some can be off set such as pensions.

The courts aim is to look for parity in your settlement both now and in retirement which is why you need to state the true value if your pension.

Your older child who wishes to go in to college will need a base to return to out of term time which will be his mums probably but his mum may be living in a house 4 bedroom that exceeds her needs 3 bedroom unless your son has a carer stay overnight or the home has been soecifacally adapted to meet his needs.

I do realise the panic your STBX is (not making clear) to the court but she either wants a Clean Break or she does not ... Given you could give her a very genourous settlement and stand back unable to do nothing while she allows a boyfriend to move into the FMH

You never know what will happen but taking you back to court to enforce a nominal maintenace order us the least likey as she and your children would have to be destitute

So for Pension Value my CETV is about £145K and hers is about £80K - but hers is final salary and a very generous one whereas mine is money purchase. So to cut a long story short I calculated what my fund would buy as an annuity under the exact same conditions and it came out as just under hers. There''s a risk that the court won''t buy this but I''ve asked some questions to her to confirm some of the points. So I think the pensions can be taken out of the equation.

There are some points in my favour here. My ex has elected to move from the FMH (6 bedroom) to the BTL property (4 bedroom) but yes it could be argued that eventually this exceeds her needs especially as she could definitely be mortgage free if she downsized to a 3 bed in 5 years. But as the house is already available and very affordable in any settlement the needs of the children are met.

I''ve just had a long chat with a friend and I think I''m going to turn this around. I think any order would only have to run to pensionable age as she has a pension the same as mine and she will be mortgage free at that point - so its 15 years.

So I''m thinking of an open offer on Tuesday with
no 35K pension share
15K from the loan paid off from FMH
35% of the FMH PLUS the £23K in the BTL to me, 65% to her
And then EITHER a nominal order OR actually a spousal maintenance payment of £250 to pension age.

And then dare her to take me to court.
With the huge negative £80K debt on the BTLs that I''m taking on I can''t see the court arguing over the 65-35% split
The loan is clearly a marital debt and I have paperwork to prove it
She cannot argue she needs more than £250 when her current income is £2800

So I would hope the court would look at this and say "looks fair enough"

Although it galls me paying her - I''d rather have the £15K now and the £35K in my pension and pay her £3K per year for the next 15 years - and I can always challenge it later.
OR I put in a nominal order into my offer for either until the youngest child is 18 or for 15 years.

What does everyone think?