First post and introduction

Hi,

I found this site via google and after reading a few posts I decided to make an account so I could search the posts and it felt like an introduction was a good starting point.

Have been married for 8 years and have 3 kids now. In March 2007 my wife asked for a divorce, I found out within a month of that she had been seeing an old boyfriend back in November 2006. I don't believe anything happened physically between them but it was enough to stir the emotions. After several months of counselling we agree that we are really getting no-where. Although we were going to counselling it felt like she was simply going through the motions to maintain the look of someone trying. In Sept 2007 she filed for divorce against me and it is still going on.

I moved out and at the start of 2008 my work took me to another country. I now travel back at least once a month to see the kids and we have regular video and phone calls etc (but that's not a long term solution).

I make voluntary payments of 25% of my salary to support the kids but that's it. We have a house in the UK that neither of us can afford the mortgage payments on so it's being rented out at present and that's about our only asset.

She started dating another guy in August 2007 who she is still seeing and I was lucky enough to meet someone where I am in 2008 (she is very supportive).

The progress on the divorce is cripplingly slow, as far as I am aware the only thing we need to agree is how the assets are divided. Finally this week her solicitor responded with a counter offer of settlement to me.
She wants 100% of the equity from the house, around £120k, and I will get a 25% charge on her new house. Also that I am to pay £525 per month in child support linked to inflation (I earn just under £2k a month after tax).

I understand her need for 100% equity now in order to rehouse the kids, I have no issue with that although if there was something for me to use to start rebuilding a life I'd not mind.
What I do not understand is the rational for offering me a 25% charge on the property....I am still waiting to get legal advice on this but it feels like that's punishingly low.

Sorry for the long introduction but that's the short short version of what has been nearly two years of pain and frustion



On a side note is there anywhere on this site which gives a glossary of some of the terms people use? Some I know, like FMH....but what does stbx mean?

Hi soren

Welcome to wiki,

I am afraid I cannot help you with the legal side of charges on new properties and the reasons for them.

As for the abbreviations, stbx is (soon to be ex)
you will also see pwc (parent with care)
NRP (non resident parent)

You will pick some more of these up as you go, if you read them within the context of the question and answer some are obvious.
If you are not sure, just ask in your post.
Once you have been on here for a while it will become easier to understand.

Sorry to hear your plight,Ihope wiki will be able to help you both with the financial and emotional situations you find yourself in.

I am sure someone will come along and try and help you with your question.

keep posting
zara

Hi Soren,

Just a quick note to say that there is a difference between child support and spousal maintenance (SM). They are two separate things.

Child support isn't index linked because it is a percentage of your nett income. SM can be index linked and if you should find yourself going down this route then check which index you think applies better to your and your stbx's circumstances; CPI, CPI-X, RPI and RPI-X.

Please do try and talk with your stbx. The very first thing I would suggest you tell her is that the two of you need to discuss a lot of things and hopefully agree most of them, if not all. If you can't agree, then you may both need solicitors to take it to court to argue it out and it may cost you both a lot of money which then won't be available for you or the kids. While you are discussing matters there is no argument and no need for a solicitor, so how about trying to discuss and agree as much as you can and when coming to a stumbling block, mark it down for possible court action but then move on without any anger to the next issue.

Now I realise that the above paragraph may seem like a prose version of 'Dr. Seuss's guide to rational discourse' but I thought the simpler I make it, the more obvious it would seem to be good sense.

Good luck!

YA

Thanks for both the helpful replies, it makes a lot of the posts easier to read knowing what the acronyms all mean

My understanding is the same as you've explained YA. Child support is a percentage of my net income and spousal maintenance would be an amount which may or may not be index linked.
As such SM has not come into the discussions so far.

I would like to think that I have adopted a fairly open and amicable approach to my stbx and in general she has been very amicable too. Our kids are aged between 3 and 5 so she and I have to communicate in order for me to talk and see the kids which so far has been fine.
Anytime I have tried to address the realities of the situation and discuss the different aspects of what we need to agree the conversation tends to go downhill quickly. I think I tend to come across as a bit cold and logical in these discussions and she in turn assumes anything I suggest is in some way designed to do her harm.

When she told me she would be filing for divorce I immediately sought legal advice. I believe my solicitor is very good (they are certainly very expensive) and they have been very blunt with me about the realities. One of their opening comments is that no-one wins in a divorce and there is never enough money. I was also told that the children would always receive priority and any settlement would seek to ensure they were properly housed and provided for above anything else. I feel that seeking legal advice from the very start helped set my expectations and my solicitor has always gone over the worst, best and likely case scenarios.

My stbx took a different approach. Her first pieces of advice came from friends, her new boyfriend and a group of often-quoted new friends who had also gone through divorces. This last group informed her that she would be able to keep our house (Valued at £280k then with a mortgage of £130k), I would have to keep paying all bills and the mortgage and that I would also have to pay whatever child support was required....since then her mindset has not shifted far from that ideal.
She did finally seek legal advice, I offered to pay for her to use a solicitor but she opted to use legal aid. I wanted to use a collaborative approach but of course that is not possible using legal aid.

Her solicitor sadly seems slightly incompetent. I don't doubt they know more than I do about the law, but that's why I hired a solicitor. My solicitor has corrected their procedure and paperwork on a handful of occasions and things like 'index linked child support' are typical errors. As I mentioned in my first post they are also agonisingly slow and the longer this takes the more it costs me. It has taken so long that the current economic climate means our house is now valued at less than £250k.

I don't have the skills to engage my stbx in rational conversation, I either express myself wrongly or have instilled such a deep sense of distrust that she would sooner listen to garden-fence experts who do not really understand the details of our finances or situation.

On a final note my solicitor has suggested that if we issue court proceedings it at least enforces a timetable on a resolution with the obvious side affect of increaesd costs. Their guesstimate was that my costs would be between £6-10k if it went all the way through the court system.... I simply cannot afford that.

So at the moment I have nothing and my stbx has it all and that's pretty much how she'd like to keep it. My life has been on hold for the past 18 months waiting for this to be resolved and although we have both moved on in many ways I cannot move on financially or make plans to build a new life until this is resolved - can feel the anger and frustration bubbling away so will sign off there

thanks for listening and please keep the advice coming

soren,

welcome to wiki.This is what we ask people to provide if you want a "guesstimate" of a fair financial settlement.

Your respective ages;

The number of children you have and their ages;

How many nights the children spend with each parent;

The length of your marriage and any period of pre marriage cohabitation;

Your respective incomes;

Your respective outgoings;

Your assets - both soley held and joint; including FMH, pensions, savings, endowments, shares etc

Your liabilities - any debts inc mortgage

Hadenoughnow

Your respective ages; Me 34, She 30

The number of children you have and their ages; Kids are 5, 3, 3 (twins)

How many nights the children spend with each parent; I live abroad at present so I see them once a month but I stay with friends

The length of your marriage and any period of pre marriage cohabitation; Married 8 years, no pre-marriage cohabitation

Your respective incomes; Me approx £24k a year net (before child support), She approx £15k a year in benefits AND my child support (she pays no tax)

Your respective outgoings; Tricky one - I buy a flight and hire car every month to see my kids which can fluctuate a lot depending on deals and time of year. I have £1500 net a month after paying £500 child support and my costs are usually between £1200-1400 a month.
She is living rent free at her parents and is renting out the FMH for £1150 a month and using that to pay the £700 mortgage and £100 letting fees....but after seeing her form E she's not saving anything so her outgoings are whatever she has coming in. But then she's had four holidays in the past 12 months and goes out most nights leaving kids with the grandparents. (sorry but I don't know how to guage outgoings as there is too much personal choice in determining cost of living.)
On her Form E she listed her expected outgoings as being some 50% greater than it had ever been when we were married. I've got records of our cost of living going back to 1998 so I have no idea how she arrived at her figures.
She has the opportunity to start work in 8 months as all the kids will be at school...if that's relevant?

Your assets -
FMH - Valued at £250k at present with a £130k mortgage in joint names.
I have a pension with a CETV of £12k.
She has kept all contents of house...approx £10k of goods
There is a car valued at approx £7k which she has exclusive use of but is registered to me. (she would keep it after settlement for kids)
Wedding rings which she has at approx £2k
She has savings of about £2k
I have savings of about £4k but the solicitor is kindly adjusting that figure for me
Nothing else I can think of

Your liabilities - Mortgage of £130k


That's all the relevant info I can think of, sorry for not including it earlier.

soren -

couple more questions ..

Did either of you contribute a significant lump sum to the purchase of the current FMH or any other property you bought during marriage?

How big is the FMH? How many bedrooms?

How much would a 3 bed house cost where she is?

Has she worked at all since having the children?

What are her longer term housing plans??

I am slightly surprised she is not paying tax if she is claiming the rental income... she should certainly be declaring it - and it could well affect benefits etc depending on what she is claiming ...

It adds up to more than 13k a year - and even with tax (given that there would be lots of deductions possible) would still be at least 11.5k.

I don't think your pension is significant - given your ages and how much is in it ...

Really the only thing to divide is the FMH ... and whether or not you get a lump sum (or have to have a charge on the property) will depend on lots of factors .. most importantly how and where the children are going to be housed and funded.

Hadenoughnow