New to all of this, looking for some advice

Hi

Well, never thought I would be facing divorce but here I am. My ex left in June 2011 for someone else, he denies this but its very obvious what he was upto. She is now living with him and bringing in a 2nd wage to the house.

I recently left the family home, mortgage in his name only, he bought the house prior to us getting together and us getting married, so i have been advised that i will not be entitled to any equity. Dont think there will be much anyway.

Im now renting privately, with my child. My solicitor advises that i wil be entitled to claim back all the mortgage payments i made to him for the 7 months prior to moving out.

Basically, I paid all of the mortgage, all of the bills and didnt receive a penny from him. He does pay CM in a round about way, by beign offset against a joint personal loan.

We were married for 3.5 yrs, I contributed to the house for the whole time we were married and for 4 years prior to that whilst living together.

He earns around £1500 pm
I earn around £1100 pm, with Benefits of £230 PM.


His assets are his house and his car.
I have no assets and no savings.

Will I be entitled to SM and roughly how is it worked out??

Can SM be back dated to the date he left?? he paid me nothing whilst I struggled and had to have my parents help me on occasion.

Thanks for reading.

Welcome to Wikivorce.

There is no SM in Scotland - there is aliment,- a general obligation to provide support "as is reasonable in the circumstances" between spouses and/or parents and children. Given that your monthly incomes are almost the same, I doubt you would receive any aliment from your husband for yourself - child support is a separate matter.

There are four steps which should be considered before making a decision about the financial arrangements. Please note that matrimonial property is that which is accrued between the date of marriage and the date of separation.

1. Establishing the date of separation on which the married couple cease to cohabit as man and wife.

2. Identifying all the assets owned jointly or individually by a couple at the separation date including the house, furnishings, a car, pensions, savings and investments and any outstanding liabilities (mortgage, car finance, personal loans, credit card debts etc) in existence on the date of separation.

3. Determining any non matrimonial property by looking at the individual assets and seeing the circumstances in which they were acquired. Assets owned by either party before the marriage or those gifted or inherited are not matrimonial property.

4. Valuing matrimonial assets as at the date of separation, for example, by providing statements for savings, asking insurance companies for surrender valuations of endowments and pension providers for the Cash Equivalent Transfer Value. Endowment policies and pensions started before marriage are apportioned for the years of the marriage. It''s best to have agreement before having the house valued by a Chartered Surveyor. The liabilities are deducted from the assets to provide the net value of matrimonial property

In Scotland "aliment" is paid to one spouse from another. When someone was dependent upon the other spouse, they are no longer married and there are enough resources it is possible for a periodic allowance (regular maintenance) for two or three years or deferred lump sum payments to be made. Sadly it doesn''t sound as though there are enough resources here.

Thats a shame. I intend claiming back if not half of the mortgage payments all of them as the mortgage is in his name and its his responsiblity. I also intend claiming back half the bills he should have paid to assist me after he left.

Does the fact that his partner is now bringing a wage into his house count for anything e.g. they have more disposable income than I do and I''m left being a single parent, scraping by each month.

A new partner''s contribution to the costs of running their home might make a slight difference when calculating the split of matrimonial assets or the amount of periodic allowance. If your husband didn''t intentionally purchase the property as a family home it isn''t a matrimonial asset to share.

If the new partner contributes to their joint expenses in theory it should mean your husband has more disposable income increasing his ability to pay something, but as his income is below average a periodic allowance is still unlikely. Sorry but Scotland is arguably the meanest in Europe when it comes to parents with the majority of responsibility for children.