Help on Financials!

I have been separated since February due to problems in our marriage for a few months before but the main reason being that I think my husband had been seeing somebody from his place of work. Our house is currently up for sale, he is no longer living here (his choice).

I've a few questions if anybody can help out:

Both our wages are paid into a joint account, the bills come out of the account and then the remainder is split between us. If he says he will only pay 50% of the bills, where does this leave me?

On the pension fund front, he has a non-contributory final salary scheme whereas mine is a contributory scheme. Over the past 5 years we should have been increasing my contributions but instead we put the money into saving accounts which we have now split. Obviously my fund is way too low, what are my options?

He has a far greater earning potential than me, I am probably not far off the top of my tree whereas he has a way to go, do I have any claim for a bigger share in the equity of the house due to this fact?

I've read that 'standard of living' during the marriage can be taken into account, what exactly does this mean?

We have no children. Our marriage would have been 3 years in February, we separted shortly after this. He earns circa 60k, me 31k but I receive a considerable bonus from my place of work, on average 14k a year for the past 3 years. On entering the relationship, he had 10k debt, we have lived together for 7 years.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Tinap,

Firstly, you have no need for a joint account. Open a nes sole account and start your earnings transferred into that. Try and agree with your husband the split of existing money in the joint account, it has been known for one party to close it and take all the money.

The pension law is incomprehensible to me so I can't comment.

Your claim is based upon length of marriage, what the two of you put into it, both your needs and earning potential is taken into account.

The standard of living you both enjoyed before marriage is the aim for the both of you after divorce. In other words one of you should not well off afterward at the expense of the other.

The only advice I can give is to try and settle as much as possible between the two of you and get solicitors involved just to draw up the legal documents. Things can go awry so quickly.

Good luck.

Tinap, if you really can't sort out a fair deal between you, you could look into mediation (cheaper than solicitors).

Mediators aim to get you to a fair agreement (see mediation thread).

Good luck.

Autumn

From experiace of what has happend to me no joint account can be closed without two signatures, so I had to chase around for days trying to get a sig from my X. Then try to get the cards, never did, but the bank did cancel them after I ended up handing them a letter refusing to pay any further debt from a set date.

I closed ours on my own. We did agree to do it but the bank didn't know that. I think it may depend on the bank, or on how the account is set up.

Sadie

On joint account, I recently had experience of NATWest.
I had a letter signed by us both, but this wasn't acceptable - it has to be a form so I had to get signature all over again so check with your bank before seeking that signature from your x2b.

It takes quite some time (2 weeks) from handing in form by the way.

There was some tension similarly when reorganising the direct debits for the household utilities etc so you still need to have agreement on who is paying for what in the interim.

You remain jointly liable for the account so there is nothing to stop your other half taking out the overdraft facility if you have one.