Heads Or Tails Its The Legal People Who Will Win

Good Day

(or as good as it can be as from some of the posts I have read I can feel there is a lot of pain and distress out there).

My long term marriage broke up after @25 years. It was not a good marriage - faults on both sides. We were not able to work out problems in a constructive way. My ex husband's way was to get angry, aggressive, verbally abusive and my way was to withdraw by keeping quiet, avoiding difficult topics, creating a life with interests outside my marriage e.g.job, yoga, studying etc. Ex husband also had a number of affairs. By then the marriage was just functional we shared a home and we both did not really like the person we shared with.

I did not realise how hard this was on the kids. We should have bit the bullet years ago.

I left in March 2007 - moved into room in shared house ....like the Young Ones only much older e.g. Christmas Tree still up in case previous owner came back for it!

Husband stayed in marital home. He would not agree to move out and at the time I was still afraid of him. I now live in better rental accommodation than at first.

We divorced in May 2008 - I instigated divorce as just did not want to be married any more - grounds unreasonable behaviour (his).

We still have to settle financially and not sure where this will end up.

Assets - marital home with @£300k equity
Rental home (£40k - £70k equity depending on if ex husband's valuation or average sale price for that road used for current value)
Husband has business value unknown. Business is on land that was bought using equity from previous marital home.
Property in Spain that I have happily waived all claim on.
I have public sector pension.
Income - mine £48k - ex husband claims his is £11k (own business so cannot confirm actual income)

Daughter (20) at uni and I don't want ex to have to sell marital home until her studies are complete as she has had enough disturbance already. During all this mess my son died (23) so vital to avoid more trauma for daughter.

Ex says that he will claim maintenance and half my pension unless I agree to settle for half value of marital home. I am not sure whether to settle for this as don't want to waste time, money, mental and emotional energy on dragging this through court. All my info can easily be accessed and confirmed as is through paid employment and pension scheme. Ex husband's will have less clarity. My solicitor says decision is mine. .....So now reverting to type I am avoiding decision and letting things drag on ......

Any ideas based on experience/inner wisdom would be of great valued.

Remi

Speaking as a "Legal Person", I have to say its largely up to the two of you, not us, as to how much you spend increasing our pension funds...!

Personally I always point out to new clients that I charge for what work I do: I don't mind if that's 1 hour, 10 hours or 100 hours, I get paid the same rate and as long as I have clients to fill the time, there's no need to "bleed" any individual. In fact its much better for me to conclude 10 cases in 10 hours each (result 10 happy clients, hopefully) than have 1 that drags on for 100 hours (result at best a moderately satisfied but exhausted client).

Lawyers can give advice, but clients decide what to do with it.

Unfortunately, if two spouses have very different ideas (and I accept that this includes where one wants to be reasonable and the other doesn't and is obstructive) the court process is the only way to break the deadlock, and it can be long, expensive and unpleasant. However as soon as anyone comes up with an alternative, I'll be delighted to hear of it and I'll be first in the queue!

Where you can have some discussion, there are various ways you may minimise costs. Constructive negotiation between solicitors achieves results far more often than you may realise, its just that those cases don't generally result in people who feel the need to come here to post. mediation and collaborative law may also help substantially (see info elsewhere on this site).

Provided your sol has given you all relevant advice, and answered all your questions, they are quite right to say the decision is yours. Its your life, not theirs. They've (hopefully) made your choices clear, and it may well be that none look very attractive - that's how divorce usually is- but only you can decide what is best (or least worse) for you.

If you don't feel you know enough to decide, go back and discuss again with your solicitor. No point making a mistake on a big decision worth thousand's of pounds for the sake of a few hundred pounds of additional legal costs.

If you don't trust the financial info that H has produced, you have the option - at some cost, and time - of examining this through the court. Your assets are not small, its worth spending some time/effort being sure you have all the relevant info before making decisions.

Your H does have a potential claim against your pension and so on, but against that must be set a realistic value for his business etc.

There isn't an easy answer for you, there rarely is. Sorry...

Active8 wrote:

There isn't an easy answer for you, there rarely is. Sorry...

Sadly, from what I understand, the nature of a break up can have a devastating effect on the outcome.

What a shame that so very many people end up with quite substantial extra financial worries and debt, at a time when they least need it.

I admire your honesty Active8.