staying over or living together

I am in the process of getting divorced. I have been seeing a chap for a while and he stays over my house 2-3 times a week. All his bills are addressed to his house etc. My ex husband to be says that this man lives at my house. Where do I stand on this?

If your boyfriend has his own place and stays at yours onl 2 or 3 times a week then you can probably argue successfully that you are not cohabiting.

If it got to court you would also need to argue that you had no immediate (within 1 year) intention to cohabit.

If you settled on the basis of not cohabiting, and then you later started to, your husband could apply for a variation of any maintenance order in force.

Thank you for your quick reply. I expect I will be using this site quite a bit as although we have been separated 20 months, it is only now that I am starting divorce proceedings. Many thanks.

My boyfriend has the intention of going for a Clean Break settlement. If he settled on the basis of not cohabiting (which he will), and then you later we moved in together, would his ex-wife still be able to apply for a variation of any maintenance order?

Also could you please explain why my living with him would make a difference to her money or rather her entitlement to mine?

Many thanks

A claimant can apply for a variation of an order for maintenance if there is a significant change in her or his circumstances.

There are two typical reasons she might apply:
1) if his income increases significantly because for example he got a promotion.
2) if his needs reduced significantly because he used to have to cover full living costs himself but now he is cohabiting with a partner who has an income and contributes to the household bills

It isnt your income or assets that directly make a difference - it is that by living with you his monthly bills are lower so he has more available cash to pay more maintenance.

If his outgoings whilst cohabiting are only slightly less than when single then the variation is unlikely to be successful.

However if he moves in with you and you have a mortgage free house and you pay all the bills so he now has very low outgoings then the variation application will have a high chance to succeed.

So to help your case make sure that you do not subsidise him too much and you should be OK.

Many thanks for the helpful response.

Melanie