Child maintenance and mortgage

Hello - I posted this on the child maintenance options area by mistake so please excuse me if you see this post twice!

I would really appreciate some advice re financial support from STBX.

When he left after Christmas, he said he would keep all financial things going. But now he says he can''t afford to. He has gradually stopped paying any bills etc. Now he only pays the mortgage, which is approx £1,800 each month. Our 16 year old son lives with me, and also our 21year old daughter who has basically finished her degree and so is at home trying (unsuccessfully so far) to find work. My question is should their father be paying me any money to support them in addition to paying the mortgage?

I simply can''t manage on my part-time salary (plus all benefits that i am entitled to), and feel that he is basically trying to force me into accepting completely unreasonable financial offers (married 9 years and lived together for 21 years before that but he wants a Clean Break where I get 50% of equity in house, no spousal maintenance, no pension share and no share of his large yearly bonus). Many thanks, Alice.

It depends on how much disposable income your husband has after meeting his own living costs any potential you have for increasing your working hours.

Posters need more information to help - the value of any assets (including pensions) held in joint and sole names, your respective incomes and ages.

Yes, re-reading my post I can see what you mean! Was so upset at him not paying for yet more household costs that I wasn''t really very clear.

We haven''t exchanged form Es yet, or attended any mediation sessions together. So I don''t know anything about his pension. His income is approx £5.5k each month plus he gets a 26k bonus each year plus shares. I take home £1400 each month including benefits. The house is in joint names, worth approx £450k with £270k mortgage outstanding, so equity of approx £180k altogether. I''m 51 and he is 49.

After this, it gets more difficult. He moved out and I am divorcing him for adultery which he admits. He has rented a 4 bedroomed house for him, ow and her son, and one of our children (19) stays with him when not at Uni. He appears to pay all costs of living in house - approx £1200 each month. He also says he pays £1000 each month in credit card/debt payments - he has never told me how these debts came about but says they total about £33k. He also has travelling expenses of approx £500 each month and costs of running his car. So he claims significant outgoings each month - but I don''t feel they are all justifiable!

I hope we can sort something out regarding finances in mediation, but we are still some way off even starting this process. And as I said he wants to pay off debts before we split equity from house, pay no spousal maintenance, keep all his pension and all his bonus. So I think mediation could be rather drawn out if it works at all. Until we can reach an agreement he is now only paying the mortgage of £1800 and says this is more than he needs to pay in child maintenance so he doesn''t think he should pay anything else. And he doesn''t - he pays absolutely nothing towards son (16) or daughter (21 who has nearly finished Uni course and is now living at home with me). In the longer term I am trying to get onto a course to improve my job prospects, but couldn''t increase my hours at work and taking on another job would make further study almost impossible. So that''s why I''m wondering if he should pay anything towards supporting our children in addition to paying the mortgage before we have finalised our financial arrangements? Its this period before we have reached any formal agreement that I''m really worried about atm.

Many thanks Alice

Your joint incomes are £6.9k and one way of looking at it is you are already receiving almost half of that (£1.4k income + £1.8k mortgage = £3.2k) Your husband has his own living costs, debt payments and travel costs whereas you have the children living with you.

You could claim child maintenance and then your husband may reduce or stop making mortgage payments. It isn''t uncommon for the spouse enjoying sole use of the former matrimonial home to pay the mortgage. If you were then struggling financially you could possibly claim interim spouse maintenance as a stop gap measure, but you wouldn''t necessarily be any better off and you might be worse off than you are now. If you applied to court for interim maintenance solicitor fees would be at least £2.5k-£3k.

I think it would be better to cut your cloth in the meantime and focus on negotiating and reaching a final settlement (including maintenance) as soon as is practical rather than wasting time, money and energy over maintenance in the short term.

Obviously he should be paying child support however at the risk of him not paying either part or all if the mortgage it''s a double edged sword if the FMH exceeds your needs you may have to consider downsizing to something more affordable.

His rental property certainly appears to exceed his own needs there is no expectation that a child who stays overnight occasionally should have there own room it''s also expected that the ow would make a contribution towards there joint living costs so he should possibly only be claiming for half of his household bills.

You need to discover how/why he built up these debts without your knowledge and find out about both your respective pension pots. What type of pension pot etc.

If he is paying the mortgage that is considered paying Child maintenance as he is housing the children.

Also, what he is paying in the mortgage is well and beyond what he would be paying in CM.

From my experience- it doesnt matter how, or who built up the debt, it all had to come out of the marital debt.

Also- his house doesn not exceed needs. Its a four bedroom house and there are 4 kids. If your kids dont share in your home, why should you expect them to share at their father''s. Its also cheaper than yours- so I am guessing you also live in a 4 bedroom.

I suggest you work together to come to an agreement and dont listen to people who say ''you can get way more than that''. As chances are (unless its a really rubbish offer)- you wont. And you will have wasted a lot of money to get an offer and closure you could have had earlier.

Its a bumby long road and I wish you luck

As the other have said £1800 is probably more than the maintenance would be ? Is your 16 year old still in full-time education and is he going to be staying in full time education for the next couple of years. I was in a similar position to you regarding the ages of children and in my case the law disregarded the 21 year old as even though mine like yours was still at Uni - they were an adult so therefore independant and didn''t count! Most bizarre I know as a mum they are always kids and always need looking after until such time they can fend for themselves but my ex decided to go with the law and said I only needed a 2 bed property as my 21yr old didn''t count!? it sounds like your ex is over housed but if you say that he''ll probably say you are too (don''t know what size your house is) . I''m guessing the marital home will have to be sold. Obviously you both need housing as in my situation there wasn''t enough equity to buy I couldn''t get a mortgage for the difference anyway so have to rent - struggle to pay bills etc.. Regarding the debts as others say yes they should be taken off the equity whether yours or his but in our case I kept my big marital debts and he kept his not so big debts! If it goes through the court it all depends on the judges - they all have different opinions! Good luck it''ll be a rocky road but hang in there.