Complicated!

Your respective ages - Me 36, her 38

The number of children you have and their ages - 2 Boys (6 and 9 yrs old)

How many nights the children spend with each parent - 6 per month with me, the rest with her (I pick them up from school on weds, they stay for tea, sleep over and take them back to school thurs morn, then thurs I pick them up from school, feed and bath them, then take them back to their mums for bedtime, I also have them every other weekend, from Sat morn, to Sun eve.)

The length of your marriage and any period of pre marriage cohabitation - never married, live together for 8 years.

Your respective incomes - mine 35k, her nothing but benefits and child support.

Your respective outgoings - mine: approx £1000 per month just on mortgage and loan payments, child support £364 Her: paying the mortgage on the family home thanks to Income support paying large whack of it.

Your assets - both soley held and joint - Family home in joint names. This is where it gets complicated: I left about three years ago, and used the 'offset buffer' of the mortgage (£24k) as a deposit to buy another home in my sole name - she signed a piece of paper saying she was accepting of the fact I was taking funds from a joint account and using them for a sole named purchase.

Now we are at mediation because she wants her name off of the liability of the £24k - which i cannot do unless I take out a loan which will cost me a damn sight more than I am pying for it at the moment - I am paying for the cost of this money on a monthly basis.

The mediator tells me that a court can order me to take out a loan to facilitate financial seperation, regardless of the cost to myself - if this is the case, then I cannot afford to live near my children, and I will have to rent a room somewhere that I won't be able to have them overnight, further increasing my ourgoings!

A month after I left she was pregnant with her latest fella, which I accepted as part of us moving on (he was part of the reason for me leaving). He moved into the property a year after I left, stayed for a year whilst the baby born and then moved out. He still sees his child a couple of times a week at the house, although the baby never stays over with him.

I have spent the last three years atttmpting to put some kind of life back together, buying a place I can be near enough to the children to see on a regular basis and be as much a part of their lives as possible, but now her solicitor deems it necessary to erradicate her liability to the funds I mentioned before.

The financial seperation only seems to be going one way! - I can't get the large family home sold because there's another young child involved. It seems that I have to stay on the family home mortgage untill my two leave home, but she's entitled to trash my life yet again because of her concern over the liability of the £24k! - All I've ever wanted was to be rid of her and to see my children on a regular basis!...

She put in £13k deposit when we bought the place and i have agreed to take this out of the net equity before it is split, when/if the property ever gets sold... So its not like I'm trying to cause mediation to fail, but if I can;t get a loan for £24k, I'm stuffed!!!!

Anyone got any suggesstions?....

Hi pdaGenie,

Sorry to hear about all your problems. You are endeavouring to maintain stable and regular contact with your children, and I feel that whatever arguement you put together, demonstrating this committment, and the need to maintain it, should be a key part. Additionally, if you still own the house you bought in your sole name, I feel that in the current financial circumstances a court should not make a judgement, ie for you to increase your outgoings with an independant loan, which puts you at risk of returning later to court as the victim of a repossession order.

I guess the basics are going to include demonstrating your income and outgoings are legitimate and that there are only fully justified expenditures. The emphasis here is on demonstrating. Make sure you have a quote for how much a loan in your own name will cost? Normally the lowest interest rates would come from extending a mortgage on the property in your sole name - have you asked, do you have a documented quote?


Have you asked for some financial advice from your bank, or a CAB?

Best wishes

Kalamari


Good luck,

Hi Kalamari! - many thanks for your reply...

To answer your questions at the bottom of it - I can't extend the mortgage as its currently running at 83% Loan to value on a buy to let product - I managed to find a mortgage company that didn't stipulate that a tenancy contract needed to be in place, so it allowed me to live here under the pretence of renting it out. As my name is still on the old home, I cannot buy another property as a primary residence...

This is partly where it gets complicated - I used the 'mortgage offset' of the old home as a deposit for this one. My ex willingly signed a statement saying she was aware that I would be taking funds out of a Jointly named assest and using it in a sole name purchase - otherwise the conveyancer would never have gone through with the purchase.

I pay for the cost of using this money on a monthly basis - and have done since the day I set it out as a deposit.

The argument my ex's solicitor is making is that this leaves her with the liability of paying for it if I were ever to be made redundant and couldn't afford to pay it, and in the interest of financial speration, this liability should be erradicated - regardless of the fact that I shall never realise financial seperation from her due to the children still living with her and no court will order the sale of the family home if she can prove affordability - which the income support mortgage payments allow her to do. Annoyingly enough, I can't be taken off the mortgage because the banks do not see her benefits as income, ergo, she has no ability to take on the mortgage herself.

There's so much more to this story, but I don't want to bore you with it - we're currently at financial mediation, and the mediator is intent on extrapolating a percentage of equity share relevant to todays gross sale valuation - I obviously have a problem with this because its being done at a time of housing market collapse - it seems irrelevant that for three years I put up with a new man in my home with my children, their new baby and god knows how much grief - I underwent immense frustration and never caused any hassle whilst she was pregnant in order to safeguard a child that wasn't even mine - and now, just because it now suits her, it seems all my good faith and patience is being used against me! (so much for trying to do the right thing!)

Sorry to rant on - any comments you may have would be greatly appreciated...

Best Regards

Phil

pdaGenie

Maybe the courts can order you to take a loan, but I doubt they can order a bank to loan you £24k. (even though they are effectively being nationalised. If you had a loan application rejected (and you have the rejection in writing for the mediator/court) then you have a case that the status quo is the only viable option. In truth, it is the only viable option for now, until by time and patience more of the mortgages are repaid.

(NB getting a loan application rejected may show on your credit rating? Only do this if you have to.)

I'm sure it is desireable

the interest of financial speration, this liability should be erradicated

. However loans of this magnitude, at lowish interest rates, have to be backed up by assets, and there's no other way of doing it at the moment. Housing of all parties is more important than financial independance. Also, this arguement id based on a future scenario, ie you lose your job, that is not a fact today.


Stick to your guns, good luck

Kalamari

Kalamari (and any others that may read) - I wanted to add another point :-

I'm also being pressured to accept a percentage rate of equity based on today's house valuation, to be applied ot the gross selling price when the old property is sold in about 12 years' time.

My annoyance here is that the timing is totally one-sided towards her - why can't I stand fast for an agreement that stipulates the costs of sale are deducted, and then the net equity split 50/50?... The mediator won't seem to let me do it..

I know it sounds petty, but a 2-3% difference, when applied to the gross sale price will mean thousands!

Am I making any sense here?

Allow me to demonstrate:-
house value, currently 220k
outstanding mortgage 150k
costs of sale, 5k
leaving 65k equity.
Split in two is 32.5k each.
As a %age of 220k, 32.5k is 14% (ish)

However, based on prices of when we split (house was worth 275k then), I should've been entitled to about 22% of the gross sale of the prop when sold...

Can you see my point here? - if house makes it back to value of 275k, the difference between the 14% and the 22% is rather significant!!!

Now, I'm not trying to be a spanner in the works and have tried to offer that we should base the value of the property at 250k - somewhere inbetween the two goal posts, but to no avail...

I guess I'm just really frustrated that after all the infidelities before the split and other crap I've had to put up with whilst split, she seems to be able to come out of this with more than her fair share of the equity, just because of the timing!...

pdaGenie,
The % of the FMH equity you may receive in 10+ years is far less important than the question of whether you can keep your house today and into the future.

The impact of future house price changes on your FMH will be offset aginst the opposite impact on your own property. So no net impact. And your ability to buy your property was from a "deposit" against the FMH. So you already have a hefty advantage from the FMH.

Determining now a % of the future house sale proceeds is a simple robust way of determining now a future share. A proposal which brings in costs is open to abuse - e.g. excessive solicior's costs. So I'm personally beginning to understand this rough and ready methods.

If you feel your financial contribution is not adaquately represented, then why not suggest that your mortgage payments prior to separation are counted as equally as the £13k deposit that your stbx contributed. Or argue that, in a medium long partnership, the £13k was contributed as a marital asset. Either way this may determine an increased share for you.

I still can't think of how you manage her financial independance. There is a thread on wiki about sugar mummies.....

Best wishes

Kalamri