Not living at home but still contributing

Hi all,

I am not currently living in the marital home due to the impending divorce. However i have been contributting to the runnig of it (bills, food etc)

What is the position on this. In my mind if i am not living there then i should not be contributing towards this. I did explain this to the soon to be ex wife to which she replied "you have a legal obligation to continue to support me as your wife"

I am going to talk to my solicitor tomorrow - just wondered if you had any thoughts on that point.

Also am i correct in understanding that as i have been paying the mortgage and not living at the marital home i can legally claim some form of back rent?

By the way there are no children in this marriage

Wow....
you sound like my X2B..... you have left the marital home - so it no longer concerns you???????
As far as I can gather, your X2B has the situation correct - you are 'obliged' to contribute towards the 'maintenance of the home'....
I think this 'attitude' is not correct, depending on personal circumstances of course..... one would need more details to come to a reasonable opinion on this...

Hi, there is a case to claim 'rent' back but it's not straightforward (what is!) I left the marital home 12 months ago and until early this year I paid half the bills, including food bills, as well as half the mortgage. During this time I stayed in a corporate flat during the week and with family/friends at the weekend. At the end of May I had to move out of the corp flat and moved back to London so i have now rented. On the advise of my solicitor I stopped paying the mortgage at that point.

My ex is trying to take the 3 months unpaid mortgage off the equity value of the house!! (despite agreeing for me to stop paying!) My sol advised that if he/she is living in house you could in theory charge rent to them on your half of the property and this will be the stance we take when we argue the reduction in equity. I don't see why I should maintain the family home and pay rent.

We have no kids and both have good jobs.

hope this helps

Hi all,
Kacees reply has intrigued me from the point of "the one left behind". My x2b has moved out, but still comes back unannounced to "collect things"/keep an eye on me.I'm still shell-shocked and haven't changed the locks yet. She used to pay the council rent and tax whilst I paid all the utilities, groceries and transport. I've just had a threatening letter from the council, surprise, surprise the rent is in arrears (£272; don't know about council tax yet.)
As she hasn't yet given notice to quit is she still liable for the rent? We didn't have a written agreement, but the council know who has been paying. Even if she is liable for half it would help in the short term. She claims to be paying her mum £100 per month while she is staying there. I suspect this will be inflated in the case though.

Hey divwiki,

As far as I know from being the 'other side of the fence' she shouldn't have stop paying without notifying you first. I only stopped paying having given him notice and got his agreement that he could afford it on his own. Bit annoyed he's now asking for this back as he's the one living in the 3 bed house in the nice area and I'm renting a shared flat and feel like my life has digressed 10 years! However, I would have been happy to split the difference, i.e. work out the cost of mortgage plus my rent and we both pay equal shares so we both take the extra expense but he hasn't agreed to this and basically wants me to pay half the mortgage plus my own rent. Another point with my case is that before agreeing to let me stop paying he said that he wasn't going to sell and was going to keep the house on post divorce so that suggested that he could well afford it (which I knew anyway).

The long and short of it though is that to stop paying without discussing it is out of order and totally unfair!

I'm in a similar situation as above, however I've a kid (8) which lives in the house with my x2b (and her child 17) I pay the mortgage and all the utilities. I just wanted to know if anyone knew the standing on "Putting a roof over your childs head" Shes addiment that shes not moving and doesnt want to sell the house. Can anyone help?