Married 15 years, divorced 16, Martin Order

Can anybody shed some light on my predicament? My ex wife refuses to correspond regarding the FMH which has an interest only mortgage with £80k outstanding, I am 63 and the interest only mortgage on my little flat ends in 2 years time-there is £200k outstanding and I have no way of paying either my mortgage or that on the FMH. The Martin Order that was awarded back in 2000 says that she can stay in the house for life, it didn''t take into account the fact that I will retire at some point. Any assistance would be appreciated.

I see you have not had a reply so I will try.

Martin orders are very rare these days, because to all intents and purposes they are not much short of confiscation. I have never encountered one on wikivorce

I would like to know whether the order obliges you to pay anything towards the mortgage, or any maintenance.

I don''t think the order itself can be varied, but I''d like to know what triggers there are in the order. If you have to pay maintenance or spousal support, that could always be varied on accont of changed circumstances, of which retirement would be one. But I gather it''s unusual for spousal maintenance to be awarded with a Martin order, and usually the share of the dispossessed spouse is greater than it would be under a Mesher, because of the longer wait before his share can be realised.

I think one would have to see the order before being more definite.

LMM

Thanks for your input, the order includes spousal maintenance, for the first 10 years I had to pay £1,250 per month, she took me back to court in 2009 because she wanted more money from me,the judge determined all her needs and reduced my payment to £750, in his judgement stated "having varied the amount of maintenance downwards I do take the view that the parties would not wish to be involved in further litigation if at all possible, and this is a matter where the parties should, in my view, consider the question of bringing this litigation to an end" the problem is she refuses to correspond at all. There is over £200k in equity in the FMH but I have no other assets as my flat is worth about £250k and I have an interest only mortgage of £202k on it. I have written to her on at least 10 occassions but to no avail.

As I said, the spousal maintenance can be varied and it would be expected that there would be a reduction on retirement.

I assume that, if your wife sold the FMH, that would be likely to trigger off a claim for repayment ?

It''s difficult to comment without knowing all the facts. This is the first Martin order I have come across in my 7 years involvement with wiki, and on the basis of what you say, the whole issue will have to be looked at again on your retirement.

Does your wife work ? What percentage of the equity do you get on eventual sale ?

LMM

Hi LMM, the original order said that we have 50/50 interest in FMH, triggers for change are the normal, marriage, co-habit 3 months, death or if SHE chooses to move. What is ridiculous is that I will be selling my own little flat as the interest only mortgage ends when I am 65 in 2017, there is an interest only mortgage on the FMH of £80k, it is valued at £291k and she will not discuss selling it/re mortgaging/equity release to pay off the mortgage-what is even more ridiculous is that she has not worked since the birth of our daughter 25 years ago, she has developed a spinal problem and is in a wheelchair (for last 6 years to my knowledge)and the FMH is a 4 bed, 3 storey semi-detached property. There is no other capital available to me but I do know that she stands to inherit 50% of her parents home (approx £100k) my parents lived in a council flat and are both long dead.I believe that she thinks I have bundles of money-she is very wrong!