what am i entitled to?

marital home value £250,000
mortgage (joint) £70,000
married 12 years
separated 2 years
husband initiated separation
one child aged 11
child stays with father one night (24hrs) per week.
father pays £540 month as maintenance
he earns approx £50,000 pa
I earn £9,000 pa
I have no pension
he has unknown pension (accrued for most of working life at least 15 years)

Thanks!

Where does your husband live now?, renting bought, does he live with someone?.

Do you live with anyone apart from the child?.

How long is left on the mortgage?.

Do you work full time?, could you increase your income?.

What does he do for work?.


Are you all healthy?.

husband rents, neither of us live with anyone else.

there is 15 years left on mortgage

I will be able to increase my income at some point by increasing my current 21 hours, our child has emotional difficulties which has caused difficulties.

I am healthy, he is also although he drinks quite heavily and has recently give up smoking
he works as a project manager in construction industry

How old are you and he?.

How many bedrooms does the marital home have?.

I am 46, he is 44, there are 3 bedrooms...

The priority will be the housing needs of the child, given the child is with you 6/7 nights that makes your needs top of the list, dads needs are met.

There are a few main issues.

Can you stay in the house you have now?, i assume you can afford to given the length of separation, does he pay over and above CM?.If you can afford to live there then he could allow this by holding a charge against the house and get his share later on, usually this would be when the child is 18 or finishes education, this is called a mesher order.

Income, he earns far more than you, but the fact that you have managed to live with out him paying spousal maintenance would indicate its not really an issue, but it is for bargaining as it were.

Pension, unknown value or scheme type, that said its not a long marriage so any sharing would probably be limited to the time you lived together, i would see the pension as of much less importance, but again for bargaining.

The two most important issues here when deciding what is fair is his income compared to yours and the fact you have the child most of the time.

Have you talked about a settlement, any idea what he hopes to achieve?.

To be honest, communicating is extremely difficult. We have not discussed i think due to lack of proper knowledge of where we both stand.
We live in Ringwood and it would not be cost effective to sell (I check on rightmove). Our son is just settling in to senior school.

I struggle a bit financially but my parents have helped and in a year or so when my son is more settled I can look to increase my hours.

i cannot afford foreign holidays, new car etc.. (as the husband can) but as my life revolves around my child this is not a particluar problem at the moment.

Forgot to add, he has been saying recently that he wants to sell the house, I looked around at what i would be able to afford and its basically a park home. he said he will give our son a year to settle then I must work more hours in order to be able to afford a mortgage.