Home as a workplace

I work as a music composer from home and have my front room converted into a recording studio where I work and have clients come over.

My income is low and I cannot afford to remortgage and move out, I want to be the primary carer of my 2 children and I feel my work is flexible enough to manage my duties as a father as well as continue my work at home.

What advice can you give about how I can protect myself from losing my home through my divorce. I am very worried of the impact that losing my home will have on me as a father wanting to be the primary carer, and as a self employed person working from home.

Hi, that is a very good point, I have the threat of losing my home and I too work from home and it hadn''t occured to me.
I hope you get some good advice, I will watch your thread with interest.

It''s good to know that I''m not the only one.

For me it''s a real problem as to keep my costs down I have to set up my recording studio in my front room. Here I have clients coming round to record and I am able to meet tight deadlines on occasions where I get an offer of work that needs to be completed in a short number of hours. I will never be able to keep my clients if I have to set up on other premises and charge more for the cost of rent. In addition I cant get a remortgage to move out and even if I did I would need another end of terrace house as the work makes lots of noise, I cant set up in an apartment without disturbing the neighbours.

This is a real problem with sever consequences to my income. Any advice anyone can give will be appreciated.

It looks like this question is a difficult one to answer.

Does anyone know where I can get information to help me with this? Would this come under occupation orders?

What I plan is to continue working at home and be the primary carer of my children. Due to the nature of my work I can easily juggle the two responsibilities and arrange my work around the needs of my children.

Please someone pointy me in the right direction to finding more information about this.

Thanks

Marcoma, are your plans for the children agreed with the stbx? If you are PWC then your housing need is greater.
As far as the working from home thing goes, I had a similar situation. What I did was factor the cost of recreating a similar work set up in a new property. This demonstrated that there was negligible financial benefit to being forced into a move. Of course it also meant the children did not have to be uprooted.
I could afford to maintain the house though. You say your income is small. Is it enough to cover household costs? Do you have a plan b for earning?
What about your stbx''s housing needs? How are they to be met?

Hadenoughnow

Thanks for this advice, I will look into costs of setting up my workplace in a new property.

As for my stbx needs, at the moment there is an issue about what her actual income and savings are, she has been secretive about whether she has had an income.

I really want to be the resident parent and am prepared to reduce my workload in order to be the children''s main carer, although it will be impractical to stop working altogether. As things are I can work around my childrens needs. Another problem is that it might be I will have our children on a 50/50 basis and I do not qualify for a remortgage as my income is so low with the property costs here being so high.

Any advice?

Thanks

You need to sort out the arrangements for the children. If you are parent with care, even with shared residence, you will be able to claim tax credits etc. This is also going to be a question of affordability. Your stbx also has housing needs that have to be met.

Without financial disclosure you cannot work out how needs may bemet. If she will not disclose voluntarily, you may need to apply to the courts for financial settlement.

Hadenoughnow