New member

Hi I am a new member and heres my story, would love to hear any advice or info..
will try to "Bullet Point"
Length of marriage 24 year, 2 grown up kids 19 and 24.
Husband earned very good money all through marriage but spent even more on fast cars, booze and stupid get rich quick ideas.
I had always worked and contributed towards the upkeep of house, holidays, bills, furniture and much more, even paid his pension for several years when he got into financial dificulties...his fault. I only ever earnt about one quarter of what he did but was brought up to be wise with my money, always saved and never lived above my means, he lived by the total opposite rules.
A shock phone call one day from a solicitor brought to light the fact that he had remortgaged the family house, he claimed my name had been left off the paperwork in error. I refused to sign. This caused huge arguments. he verbally bullied me into signing over the property to him, however documents drawn up by solicitor retained my rights to the property and a letter was draughted stating the mortgage and property would be sorted out as soon as he got the money through and I would be added back to property. This never happened, 6 years ago. my solicitor agees this is grounds for divorcing him on unreasonable behaviour.
The last few years of our marriage was a total sham of a marriage, I threw all my time and effort into work in order to try to put some money into my bank, he put all his into keeping the local pub in business.
2 years ago my father died suddenly, as an only child I inherited his property, into this I fled. I was well aware that if I had remained with him the property would have been used to fund his lifestyle. He had inherited a property a few years befor, this was meant to be sold and split between him and his sister. However he turned down all offers on it as he claimed not high enough, eventually his sister demanded her share of what was rightly hers, being the fool he was he remortgaged that property which was worth about 230,000 for 150,000 paid his sister 100,000 and blew the rest on cars and holidays for himself. After sitting empty for a year he finally managed to rent it out.
I have been left him now 2 years and in Jan I plan to divorce him. The marital home is probably worth about 280,000 however he owes 120,000 on it. When I was on the mortgage we owed 80,000. My solicitor recons I should be elegible for a share of the equity less only the 80,000.I am dreading the financial settlement as he wont want to give me anything. I am still paying the gas and electric on the house as it shows my interest in the property and I hope this will help my case. Well thats about it folks, any advise most welcome. many thanks.

Hi Mel

I'd like to welcome you to Wiki, though I'm sorry you are having such a difficult time. Can't give you any advice (although I am sure you will get good advice from others on here) but would just like to offer you some support. Sounds like you need a hug!!

Hope things start getting better for you very soon. Take care.

Chrys

Thanks, counting the days to Jan and I take the first steps to divorcing him. Just want it over now. Take care

I don't find it easy to answer this one. In the first place, it shouldn't be difficult for you to find grounds to divorce him. Usually when a marriage turns sour, it manifests itself in a number of ways which will be quite enough to support an allegation of unreasonable behaviour.

My first impressions are as follows.

Yours is a long marriage. You have raised two children,and been a wife, mother, and probably chief cook and bottlewasher.

Now the point is that you will probably have been disadvantaged in some way because you can't normally take a full time job because you are looking after the kiddy winks. He on the other hand is free to make lots of money. As someone put it, the cock can feather his nest because he doesn't have to spend his time sitting on it.

So therefore there is a value to that and the assets split should reflect your contribution as a wife, mother, etc etc etc. It's called compensation for relationship created disadvantage. If the assets are not enough to give you a fair share, in principle spousal maintenance can be awarded to make up the difference.
This is the general drift of the House of Lords decision in the famous ( or infamous, depending on your point of view ! ) case of McFarlane v McFarlane.

Next issue, for you, and for him too of course, is where you are going to live.
I'm going to talk generally here.

The objective is to re-house you both. It may be that both of you could downsize if the kids have grown up. In principle the options are these ( more or less )

1. The house is awarded to one of you outright. Not likely, I would say.
2. You have the right to live in the house until you die, re-marry, cohabit or voluntarily vacate for a period, say 6 months. This is called a Martin order and it is just possible, but again I think not likely.
3. One of you buys the other out ( again not very likely )
4. The house is sold and the proceeds divided. I would say this was the most likely outcome, but think about it and see how it applies to your situation.

Next. Has he a pension ? Do you ? If he has you have a potential claim on it.

On the face of it I think your financial claim could be quite substantial. He won't like it of course, but you need to remember
that most divorce settlements involve more than a bit of horse trading. Where there is a long marriage with kids, the likelihood will be that the split will be in the region of 50-50.

But you have a solicitor,obviously. What does he think ?

It's getting late ( for me ) and so to bed, as Pepys was fond of saying. But don't sell yourself short.

LMM