Financial Settlement?

Hi All...

So here''s the background so far!

I have been married 7 years,(I lived with my partner for 3 years before this also) and been separated now for 1 year. We have one child (6) from the marriage.

We paid for our first marital home in 2005 with money gifted to him from family + small mortgage. We renovated it, sold it for a small profit and moved to the second family home 5 years ago. We sold the marital home and started a trial separation in May 2011, split the proceeds 50/50, which he didn''t think was fair but that''s another story... to put into two properties for us each to live in while we decided it our marriage was irrepairable. We had already decided to try this separation about 6 months before the move out of the marital home but he wouldn''t rent elsewhere so we had to live together for 6 of those months while it sold. (hell!).

I was a stay-at-home mum during the marriage, he is self employed and works full-time and doing very nicely thank you. I am the main carer for our daughter and she see''s him one day on the weekend and one evening during the week if he''s not busy.

He now lives in a 2 bed (smaller mortgage), and I live with my daughter in the main residence property (3 bed semi larger mortgage) just around the corner (arrgg!!!). For all intensive purposes the plan was that I would release my name from ''his'' residence if we decided to split officially - and the main residence mortgaged property would become ''mine'' (complete with mortgage). Both names are on both mortgages. What we didn''t think about at the time was how I was going to go from stay at home mum to being able to take on an 80k mortgage by myself on a part time wage!


We planned for the divorce to be amicable and I was planning on taking on the mortgage when I was earning enough (in hindsight this wasn''t the best idea as I will need to be earning approx 20k part-time in order to be able to take on the mortgage myself!) He is currently paying the mortgage on the property I reside in, in leui of child maintenance. (approx £320 a month). Coupled with his own mortgage this still comes to less than he was paying for the marital home before we sold it.

I receive child tax credits and child benefit at the moment. I have set-up myself as self employed currently designing websites and doing voiceovers so that I can work from home and be there for my daughter, but of course its a slow process to build the work up. I''m just making enough to make ends meet, so long as he keeps up the payments on my car. I have to do a 40 mile round trip to school each day (there and back x 2).

Things have since gone downhill and it seems the divorce won''t be as amicable as first thought, he says that I am lucky to be even receiving half of the monies in question as it was a gift to him in the first place, and has mentioned me losing the house should I decide to try for more than that.

We are now at the settlement stage of our divorce and I am really scared as to what will happen. I can''t afford to take on an 80k mortgage. My financial advisor has suggested that I *might* (big *might*) be able to get a mortgage for about 50k. So in the settlement my solicitor is going to ask that he pays off the extra 30k on my mortgage to allow me to release him from it, and to take on my car payments (or a sum to clear the car) and then go for a Clean Break. No spousal maintenance, claim to any of his savings or pension etc. He will NOT agree to this and I know he will string it out as long as possible. Meanwhile we can''t put roots down in this house as we don''t know if we can afford to stay here. I only bring in an extra £350 a month currently on top of my tax credits (although I do envisage this will improve with time, I have 3 jobs, all part time)

So basically my solicitor has asked:

£40k to clear part of my mortgage and cover early redemption fees to enable me to take it on.
10k to pay for the car so I can continue to do the school runs etc.

*When we separated the equity in FMH was divided 50/50 to put into the two current properties we reside in, so the initial 50/50 split would stay as is, with the addition of what has been asked for above.

My life is in turmoil and I cannot WAIT to get off this horrible horrible out of control rollercoaster. Does anyone think that this is a fair settlement? Or am I peeing in the proverbial wind? I hate the thought of having to go and rent somewhere with my daughter and have no firm roots!!!

Thanks so much

Divigrl

bump

You need to post more details of what you both have for someone to express an opinion.

Does he have £50k to ive you?

Would it make more sense to downsize? A two bed house nearer to school might save you a lot of money as a 10 mile trip without free transport is unusual and you seem unhappy about close proximity of your ex.

We can''t live any closer to the school she goes to as it gets more expensive as you get closer to it, not even a 2 bedroom. (we sold the FMH and moved away), yet I do not want to register her in the village school here as I don''t know if we will be able to even keep this house - I don''t want to keep moving her around at the moment whilst everything is up in the air.

I have the third bedroom of this house set up as a recording studio/office for my work so I do really need the extra bedroom.

He doesn''t have 50k cash to hand over no, I guess my solicitor figured he would take on a larger mortgage (his is only small) so is able to release some of the equity? Is this how it would work?

I know he is adverse to selling his home as he is settled in this village somewhat. The alternative is for me and my daughter to sell this house and rent if he will not agree but that seems insane considering rent is 2x the mortgage, and not sure how we will cover that indefinately!

Financially, I have approximately £700-800 a month, including my work and tax credits. He brings in approx £2500+ a month. (but is self employed so I know there is more than that here and there!)