settlement

I have attended mediation sessions and found the mediator to be slightly biased in favour of my wife.i have three children from my first wife and they are all over 22 years old and still living with us. My current wife of 19 years now wants us to separate because as she puts it , she wants her life back!! I am 70 and she is 55. she wants to in her own words "take me for every penny" and to this end wants to sell our house and move into a new home with the children. I have worked hard over the years and amassed a pension pot of £250k plus savings of £85k My house has been valued at £850k.my wife never wanted for anything and used a joint bank account i set up.
She worked from home but claims she spent all her money as she went along. Never contributing anything to the housekeeping even when the children went off to uni. It now seems as though she may be entitled to a 60/40 share of everything plus maintenence! this could in theory end up with her walking off with over £700k leaving me with less than £300. is this right?

Where do these figures come from? Do they start with “my solicitor says.....?”

Starting point will be 50:50. There would have to be a good reason to divert from that

figures pretty much from the calculator.you made me smile though because that's exactly what she said "my solicitor said" im trying to fill out form E but getting depressed. Ive tried to be reasonable but get that "my solicitor said ill get the lions share"im now not sure if 50% of everything i have including 50% of all my pensions wil be enough.
thanks for replying though.

The calculator on here is very crude,
.
You each need a one bed home. A 50:50 split would almost certainly achieve that.

You may possibly be able to argue you should have more than 50% as she can still work and save into her pension for 12 years to state pension age.

From the info you have given us I don’t see any arguments she can put forward for having a need for more than 50%

that's a bit of a relief. thanks for your input.
if i could just ask one more question?
I really dont mind sharing as i know that the wife's contribution is every bit as important as the "breadwinners"
the pension dividing thing is confusing. would it be best to give a lump sum equal to half the CETV as a way of offsetting or, go for the pension sharing option? i have four pensions and one of them is inherited from my first wife.
i believe that in a pension sharing scenario this may not be shareable.

How is the mediator showing bias? Presumably you've both put forward suggested splits of the assets? What disparity is between them.

You are at a point where going to court will potentially be costly and with little reward to either of you whereas reaching an agreement quickly will be in both your interests even if your Ex wishes to fight.

As your pension is presumably in payment already and your ability to increase that is limited is there no option to suggest keeping your pension and splitting the equity in her favour to allow her to start a pension at least that she can contribute into going forward.

With the best will in the world a £250k pension pot isn't life changing for most people due to annuity rates and will erode quickly if being used for funding solictors and your life

if you sold the house and took a £350k/£500k split and kept your pension or £325/£525k?

I agree, that is pension offsetting i believe. and I would go with 325/525 option.
However during Mediation my wife was angling for a 70/30% of everything as she wanted the "children" to live with her in a 3/4 bedroom house and that i only needed a small flat. The mediator asked me if that was something i would consider plus the fact she skipped over other issues like my wifes undisclosed earnings and inheritance from her father. and seemed more concerned with my wifes plans for Christmas with her family.Ultimately producing a sheet of A4 with every asset listed all mine plus £29 my wife has saved in her bank account!!
The children quite rightly dont want to get involved and will live/stay with either of us.