Can I buy out my husbands share of our home?

Hello.

I wonder if someone could offer me some advice on whether I could possibly buy out my husbands share of our family home.

My husband left me and our 2 children (aged 4 and 6) in Jan to be with his mistress. She owns her own home and he plans to move in there in the next month or so. We have been married for 7 years, but have been joint home owners for 17 years, contributing equally until I had the children.

We have a joint mortgage, owing £82,000 and the house is worth approx £300,000, so there is a lot of equity there. Our mortage is due to be paid off in around 3 years. He earns approx £40K and his girlfriend earns similar. I am not currently working. I have approx £25,000 in savings.

I saw a solicitor who advised me that a 'Capital Clean Break' would be the most likely way forward, with me getting around 60% of the equity once the children are out of full time education, or when the house is sold.

I am 42 and hopefully my children will go to university, so I will be nearly 60 when my youngest finishes uni. Its unlikely I would get a mortgage at that age, so that worries me, how I will be able to finance a new home. I know thats a long way off and lots may happen in the meantime, but as things stand now, I am single and I will get a job once my youngest starts school in January.

I would dearly love to buy out my husbands share of the house, but I don't know how I would begin to work out how much that would cost me? Presumably if we sold the house, then what is left over after estate agents, solicitors fees, stamp duties, and whatever other fees are paid, is then split between us.

Does anyone know how I can work out how much I would need to raise in order own my home outright?

If I paid him a lump sum, would he still be expected to pay in some way towards his childrens home?

Would I be able to claim spousal maintenance as my savings would have to go into the house?

At present, we are separated and he is paying the household bills and the mortgage. I am looking for part time work during nursery hours, but currently my only income is child tax credits and child benefit, totalling approx £520 per month.

So many questions! Can anyone advise me?

Thank you for reading.

Well, first of all, I'm very sorry to read your story. It's never easy to cope with a situation like that.

May I start with a few observations of a general nature.

The first is that you need a home, and so do your children. The Court will give some priority to the children's need for a home while they are still dependent. As the main carer, that will benefit you, as it often does.

The second is that your husband will have to pay child support according to the CSA formula. How much that is, depends on how
often he has staying access. But he will have to pay you something and by and large it is not negotiable.

The third is that you should review your entitlement to benefits in the light of the separation. A CAB should give you advice on this free of charge.

The fourth is that, if your husband does what you say he will do and move in with his NP, then his housing needs are met. So the Courts don't need to worry about where he is going to live. On any view of the situation he is comfortably off.

So you and your children clearly need a home. Let us look at the various possible options.

The first is that the house is sold and the proceeds divided.

The second is that you buy him out.

The third is that you and the children stay in the former marital home until the youngest is 18 and the property is sold at that stage and the proceeds divided. This is what your solicitor is suggesting and
60% is well within the range of the possible. By the way, this is called in the trade a Mesher order after the case where it was first used.

There are other options but I regard them as unlikely.

Spousal maintenance - tricky. You will almost certainly get something. One issue is whether you can obtain employment. In principle you are expected to take some steps to support yourself but when there are young children involved, then my own view is that you would not be expected to seek work until your youngest starts secondary education.

That doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't take work if you want to and if you can manage the childcare. All depends on your circumstances. I've seen women who went back to work after pregnancy on the earliest day they legally could. But as some posters have correctly observed, I'm a bit old school ( fuddy duddy if you like ) but your husband is living in a house with no mortgage and a new partner who could reasonably be expected to pay half the household costs. Even after child support he's going to be comfortably off and this is a factor very much in your favour.

Have you considered pensions ? I think you should. If you can get some share of his pension, you can top it up from your earnings.

The issue of a buy out = hmmmm, not sure.
But as I've said, the fact that he might have to wait a long time for his money
could mean that he could be attracted by an offer of 20% now rather than 40% in 13 years or so. Just a thought.

You need legal advice, without any doubt, but what is coming through to me is that you might be willing to take a settlement on the low side. I think your case is quite strong.

LMM

The key figures to work with are
1) Valuation of property
2) Split of equity
3) Size of mortgage you could afford

Note that size of mortgage you can afford and size of mortgage you could get are very...very...different things.

The problem you will have getting a mortgage is that currently you don't work which I think would probably make it impossible to get one at the moment.

You may be able to adjust the split of equity if he has a mortgage that he wants to hang on to, so in this case he would accept less equity in the house but keep more of his pension.

LB

People keep posting that once party has moved out and is living elsewhere that the housing needs are met and so the court won't consider them and I just don't beleive this to be true. One side may try to claim thia about the other but leaving the FMH does not reduce either party's entitlement to a share of the assets from the marriage. If this were true then no one would ever be prepared to move out of the the FMH and would stay there to the bitter end in order to preserve their share. Are their needs met if they are renting a room in someone's house? Staying with a friend or family member? Renting their own house?

Divorcegirl - their needs are not necessarily assumed to be met, in the sense that they are then treated as having no housing needs and therefore no need of capital. However, if they are, in fact, living somewhere which is reasonably secure, it becomes easier to argue that their *immediate* housing needs are met - e.g. that a Mesher type order rather than an immediate pay-out would be reasonable. Someone who is living with a new partner, or renting a property, will find it harder to say "I need £x from the house NOW because there is no other way I can rehouse"

Re: original post
You said the house I worth about £300K and the mortgage is £83. So net equity (taking into account notional costs of sale) is around £209K. A 60/40 split at this stage would give you about £125k and your ex around £83K.

Your ex, if he earns £40K p.a. will have net income (before any pension is taken into account) of around £2,400 a month, so his CSA liability would be UP TO £480 a month. Given that your children are young and you are not currently working I think it likely that you would have a potential claim for some spousal maintenance as well, however you may wish to discuss other options with your solicitor, including the possibility of a higher share in the equity instead of a maintenance claim.

On what you have said, I think it is possible that you might be entitled to claim more than 60%, although if you make claims for maintenance and pension sharing then a 60/40 split of the house may be fair.

Your savings are also part of the matrimonial assets and will need to be taken into account.

In respect of your comment re: affording somewhere to live/getting a mortgage at age 60, while it is of course the case that you might struggle to get a mortgage at 60, you would at that stage no longer need a house large enough for you + two children, so if you were not able to get a mortgage, or had not been able to make savings, you would have the option of selling the house and using your share of the equity to buy a smaller property.

Are you able to afford the mortgage payments to stay in the house?

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I was wondering if offering a lower percentage of the equity now, rather than 40% in 15 years would appeal. One worry for me is that if I make improvements in the home, eg double glazing, carpets, bathroom suite -all of which need replacing - would he then benefit from the money that I am spending on home improvements if I wait 10 - 15 years before selling?

I am able to meet the mortgage payments at the moment with my savings, which sounds a bit daft. The mortgage endowments have less than 3 years left to run. After which, the mortgage won't be completely paid off, but will be reduced significantly. This unfortunately means more equity.

The outcome that I want is for him to move his stuff out and for me to be able to keep the girls in the way they deserve. At the moment, our garage houses his motorbike, a classic car, 2 engines and various other car parts. Our loft contains so many car parts you could build a whole car from them and still have spares. I have been advised that he has every right to keep his stuff here as it is his house. He has threatened to stop paying the mortgage if I stop him parking his car in the garage.

Unfortunately, his girlfriend does not have a garage and so when he moves in with her on the 23rd June, he still can't move out his stuff as he has nowhere to put it. I really don't see that this is my problem, but it seems it is.

Any further comments/advice would be very welcomed. Thanks again for reading.

When your ex takes his percentage, whether it is sooner or later then the agreed percentage is what he gets whether the value of the house has gone up or down. If you make improvements to the house then yes you are increasing his share along with yours. The reason is basically he has (at today's figures) £83K invested in the house that he is getting no benefit or interest from, nor can he take the money and invest it elsewhere to get any benefit from it.

Technically he is correct, it is still his house and he could, if he wished, not only leave his stuff there but move back in unless you had grounds (verbal or physical assault) to get an occupation order and a non-molestation order. You haven't mentioned anything like this so I assume not. It may be his house but it is your home and morally it would be the right thing for him to rent a lock-up for all his gubbins but I don't know of any way to force him to do this until the Absolute is signed and the provisions of any Mesher order come into force.(I am not a lawyer and stand to be corrected if a more knowlegable person stops by!)