Offer

My Husband Hosp consultant £ 90 000 pa
£5100 net per month)


Me Nurse ( £450 per month - £100 childcare)

Married 17 years
3 children - 6,8 ( has heart condition- me sole carer) and 14.
His pension pot £220 000
My pension pot £ 10 000
House £250 000

Offer from his solicitor today
matrimonial home transferred to my name
Triggering event- house sold 35% given to husband.
No mention of pension.
£1300 child support
plus £1000 spousal support ( I pay mortgage of £750 and council tax of £160 out of this!)
The spousal support will be for next 5 years only with a S28(1a) bar????? ( What does that mean? Our youngest child will be 11 then.

Is this fair? Is the money spent on a solicitor worth it or would I be better off self- representing?

How old are you and how old is he?

How many nights per week do the children stay with dad?

His pension is uniformed service and needs to be valued by an actuary if the CETV is 220k it will be worth much more.

With the details you give the offer is not fair at all, there is a huge disparity in income, his future income potential is much higher than yours, again huge disparity in pension value and after a long marriage there is an argument for equality of income at retirement, in any case you need a pension share at the very least.

A section 28(1)(a) bar prevents a claim to extend spousal maintenance and in your case don`t agree to it, its a big fat no to that one.

Aha, just done the maths and about to post when I find Dukey has said everything I was going to. Your STBX has pretty much offered you what the CSA wouls assess him for then added £1000 pcm on top to equalise your monthly incomes. Out of that he wants you to pay the mortgage and support 4 of you whilst supports himself.

Now of course he has to house himself and it should be somewhere the kids can come and stay so digs in the hospital wouldn't cut it, but it would appear that he wants you to pay the mortgage out of the SM (which is supposed to be equalising your income), and then after many years take a good chunk of it back as a lump sum from the house.

Depending on your ages the pension issue is highly relevant so don't let that slide. It is not unreasonable to expect you to increase your hours as the children get older and therefore become less dependent on his input (talking SM here, your income is irrelevant to CM) but is it feasable that there will be equality by the time your youngest is 11? And what effect does you middle child's health issues have on your ability to work full time, train for a job that does not involve shifts, promotion etc?

If he stops paying you SM in 5 years and you stay in the family home until your youngest has finished Uni this gives you 11 years of paying the mortgage after SM has finished and before house is sold. Does he expect 35% of any increase in equity for those years for which he has made no contribution?(poss Vaughan vs Vaughan requirement for him to contribute to house adult children whilst in tertiary education)methinks.

Dukey is the expert and you should take his advice, I'm a Mum, and a realist and a believer that everyone should stand on their own two feet as soon as they can after their marriage finishes, but in your case you need financial support for you and your kids that is far greater than that on offer.

Straight answer? Get thee to a solicitors woman - he's pulling a fast one!

Thank you so much -he is 43 and I am 42. I have always worked and am not opposed to working more if he helps with childcare- which he doesn't. He sees the children fortnightly from 18:00 on a Fri to 18:00 on a Sun every 3th weekend he doesn't see them if he is on call. Even though he home based then - not in hosp acc. He has a very nice flat but lives with another woman that he met in an internet chatroom! ( At her house)so the flat is empty bar the weekends he has the children. The eldest and youngest refuse to go see him so I can't work more on weekends cos only the 8 year old goes to see him. Littlest one misses his mummy too much and eldest one got email from Dad saying he didn't want to see him ( He gave 14 year boy 3 cans of deodadrant and 3 tubes of Shower gel for Christmas - that was all- nothing else and when my son was upset .... esp after being told he smells.... dad won't see him )Just to check..... murder is def illegal???

Can i point out i am no expert just a man with a morbid interest in family law, but fanks for the compliment.

I make no comment on the Christmas present for two reasons,

1, I have no wish to leave the site,

2, It would take team wiki an hour to edit the naughty words from the post,

Before you even think about accepting any offer full frank and honest financial disclosure needs to be made,

The priority is the children and will be if this goes to court,

They mention a mesher order for the house it is an option but when do they suggest it ends?

35% of equity is not unreasonable but that is one consideration think about the assets globally pension equity car flat marital home savings the whole lot goes in the pot,

The disability of a child is a consideration listed in the matrimonial causes act, in your case it will reduce your future earnings potential,

His future earnings potential will almost certainly be greater than yours,

After a long marriage equality of income in retirement is an issue this may mean you need a high % of his pension shared in your favour, at his age he can recover this loss before retirement, a solicitor will instruct an actuary to not only value his pension but to draft several models to show potential outcomes with regard to equalising income,

The offer as it stands is erm pants rubbish naff ill be good and leave it at that,

The best way forward is to talk to a mediator they can help you both make agreement that works for the whole family,

If this is refused you have a very strong case in court, i would imagine a settlement in your favour of 70/30 and depending on your financial needs spousal maintenance for years to come, especially as you are the sole carer for a disabled child.

I so much better now- I had offered him - I would keep the house, he keeps his pension, he pays maintenance/ child support till our youngest is 18 with the childsupport portion reducing by a third on each child reaching 18 and then he would be done with me in 12 years time. Because the house is currently worth more than his pension he thinks I'm greedy( His exact word). We were going to sort this out nicely but he has the new girlfriend who clearly feels she should be entitled to my house and now he is playing hardball.

If I don't use a solicitor- he's sends letters every time the wind changes and doesn't appear to realise that he has to pay for them ( I'm not going to !!!!)- will I have the same financial outcome? Will the court make a decision or do we have to do it between ourselves before going to court?

Lin

I am glad for your sake he didn't take that offer, with draw it quickly, and as for hardball - you are in a much better negotiating position than he is if it goes to court. Don't let him bully you.

Child support CSA rules say 15% for 1 Child 20% for 2 and 25% of his net income for 3, so work on these lines for that.

At what stage should he be "free of you" - everyone has a responsibility to increase their earning potential to help support themselves. However the courts recognise that one parent may have taken career breaks/ gone p/t, been unable to take promotion and thus "hindered" their earning potential, and pension pot in order to look after the children. White vs White establishes that the "carers" input to the family pot is considered equal to the "earners" even though on paper it cannot be shown in tangible financial terms. It seems this is the case with you and you are therefore entitled to support from him for some time, including after retirement as there is a great disparity in your pension pots, you should be looking at claiming some of his pension on the grounds that your pot would be bigger if you had were able to work more hours if you were not the primary carer for your joint children and have been for 14 years and will be for a number of years to come.

How long it will take you to reach your full earnings potential is complicated by how the health of your middle child affects your ability to increase your earnings over the next few years, and will he need care indefinitely or do you have an expectation that he will be able to live independently at some stage (I'm sorry these are really intrusive and personal questions but you have to think about them.

Girlfriend and house. Pah! Vaughan vs Vaughan establishes that it is not unreasonable to expect parents to provide a home for children to live in whilst they are at University, even if they are away during term time. All the time you have to maintain at minimum a three bedroom home for your joint kids, he will have to help (unless you win the lottery, or remarry or whatever trigger points you agree to).

Stbx does have an expectation of a life and this is not unreasonable, and if the house is transferred to your sole name it will free him up to get a mortgage of his own. You state he has a nice flat, where rented or bought? If bought where did the deposit come from? Even if it is from savings in his own name these, after a marriage as long as yours, are considered marital pot and therefore half yours...

This looks like a litany on how to fleece your husband, and I don't mean it to be, but he does have an obligation to his children for some years, and as their carer to some extent this extends to you too.

You can go to a solicitor for advice (see warnings on sols/legal execs etc on other threads today)possibly even half an hour free if you shop around, without giving them your instruction. This means you can take information from them but not get involved in expensive tit-for-tat letter writing between sols.

I am not part of the wikiteam and therefore can probably speak more freely so I urge you to take legal advice and research, research research before agreeing to anything.

Whenever someone expresses a fear of wasting their Doctor's precious time, I always say to them I was paying my taxes to support these Doctors whilst they were training to make their time so precious, so don't let them think they can lord it over you cos they've got letters after their name. Don't let your stbx bully you into accepting less than your children are worth just because he has a high status job and is used to having his orders obeyed.