A Few brief intial questions before I begin

Hi, I'd like to find out a few things. I haven’t submitted my application yet but it will be done within the week.
My situation is as follows:

Married for 10 years - I moved out of the house (joint mortgage) and into a friends house where I've been staying on the couch for the last 3 months, I have no intention of ever going back as my wife was an abusive drunk. Once I'd been moved out for a week I slept with someone else, now I will petition for divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour and my wife is demanding the name of the other woman, is this legal?

Then she also threatens with demanding maintenance (there are no children involved) and she is permanently employed although my salary is double hers. Can she demand this?

She is still living in the house and has made no effort to move out. The house BTW will have a negative equity due to the housing market. Can I demand sale of the house and will the debt be divided between us even if it is pro-rated on salary basis I don’t mind?

So to sum:
Can she demand maintenance - no children - she is fully employed?
Can i demand sale of the house - negative equity - what will happen to the shortfall?
Can she counteract my petition with her own petition of Adultery - with 3rd parties be named?

Hi Broski,
Sorry to hear of your situation. Not pleasant.

Maintenance - Difficult one. Depends on a lot of factors. Ages, income levels, earning potential, size of asset pot, need etc. With negative equity in house, big earnings discrepancy, it is a possibility.

The house is a marital asset (or liability it seems). Normmal procedure for ten year marrige would be a 50% split of assets and liabilites. So in the event that your wife agrees to the sale of the house, the shortfall would be split 50:50. The house could be ordered to be sold in ancillary relief proceedings once a divorce petition is served, but the question is, would your wife be able to take on the mortgage herself? As co-mortgagees, you have a joint and several liability for the mortgage. If you stopped paying, they would come after both of you for the arrears and you could get yourself a bad credit rating. The mortgage compnay would only let you off the mortgage if your wife had sufficient income to sustain the mortgage.

Adultery - Yes, your wife could cross petition you on adultery. Absolutely pointless, and very expensive to do this. If the marriage is over, it is over.

I appreciate that things are not good between you at the moment, but you need to agree how the house will be dealt with, and how the divorce will be dealt with. Divorce is no-blame. It makes no difference at all to the financial settlement as to who divorces who and on what grounds.

Yes, your wife could name the co-respondent. Very inflammatory, and again pretty pointless. Only you, she, you respective legal counsel, the court staff and the Judge who hears the petition will see it.

Hope it helps,

Mike

Thanks Mike,
She could never handle the mortgage on her own and could not buy out my share but can she just stay in the house.. or could I demand sale of the house ? As i now haveto pay the majority of the mortgage as well as rent. this will soon become an unsustainable situation.

Broski,
Sadly this is a tricky one.

Two routes:
1. Negotiation
SHe has to see that this is unsustainable. When you need to rent, you simply won't be able to do both. The house does not have any equity to argue over, is probably bigger than she needs and she can't afford it. Maybe after a period of calming down, she will see sense herself and agree to the sale. However, as you moved out and are paying, she has a huge disincentive to do this

2. Legal route
Through Ancillary relief proceedings take it up to a Final Hearing and have a court decide the outcome. Probably cost anything between £15 - £40K to do this. Each. Not something that you really want to contemplate

She has every right to stay in the house until ordered by the court to go. But it still has to be paid for.

Others may have other ideas, but I think that this is the bald truth of the matter.

Mike