sell house to pay legal costs

I am just starting out on the road to legal seperation and OH and I have had the discussion of how we are to proceed.

He initially said that he would sign over the house plus all of the equity. Now that he has been talking to some mates of his, he has decided that he would like to ''ringfence'' his proportion of equity (I think that he thinks that it is likely to be a 50:50 split), this equity will only be available to him if I ever sell up (I don''t think that he has really given it that much consideration as theoretically, I could never sell it which would leave him with no equity!). We would keep our own cars and keep our own debts which probably amount to approx the same.

My issue is that I want the house in its entirety. I know that this may sound greedy, but I feel that I need to secure mine and my childrens future in the best possible way. I have Muscular Dystrophy (diagnosed last year) and our house is already set up for wheelchair access and is a bungalow so is practically tailor made for me.

I cannot afford to pay him a lump sum and will just about to be able to afford the mortgage on my own.

He wants to do mediation which is fine by me as I want to keep costs down as much as possible as well but....I will be able to fund (via family) solicitor costs and he has said that if we do go down that route then he would just sell the house to pay for his sols fees out of his equity as he doesn''t have the money to pay for a solicitor.

Any advice?

Hi Kazza,

No-one will be able to give you any advice until we know more detail.

You will need to provide answers to the following:

Your respective ages;

The number of children you have and their ages;

How many nights the children spend with each parent;

The length of your marriage and any period of pre marriage cohabitation;

Your respective incomes;

Your respective outgoings;

Your assets - both soley held and joint;

Your liabilities.

It may be worth reading through this also:
www.wikivorce.com/divorce/Divorce-Advice...PLITTING-ASSETS.html

Sorry WR - should have included all that in the original post...

Me 32
Him 37

Children x 2 (11 and 12)
They both stay at mine 6 nights, OH 1 night

Marriage: 12 years (+ 2 yrs co-hab), together total of 17yrs

Income
Me £26.5k (although my ability to work in the future may be hindered due to my condition)
OH £25.7k

Assets
Cars Me £10k; OH £7k (solely owned)
Equity approx 40-50k
No savings

Liabilities
Me - credit cards approx £12k
OH - credit cards approx £6.5k and personal loan approx £10k

I don''t have any figures for our pensions at the moment but I have paid into mine for the past 8 years and him into his for the past 4 years.

Are both credit card debts for the benefit of the marriage or spending for the benefit of the CC holder?

Was the debt incurred during the marriage?

You both have similar income and once he pays CM (min 20% at CSA calculation) he''ll have less.

Because of the amounts you are talking about, you need to avoid Court - If you went to Court and then had to sell the house to pay for each of your legal expenses (not that I am suggesting such,just repeating his suggestion - only a Court can order a house sale) once legal fees are paid there won''t be much of the 40-50k to share out - its pointless. One member here paid out around £30k to Final Hearing and her ex paid out more!

Mediation may be the way forward for you, Dukey, LMM, TBagpuss and Hadenoughnow are good at giving opinions on what the split may be, I think the Muscular Dystrophy will be a big factor though.

WR

Thanks WR - yes all debts were incurred during the marriage.

A fairly usual split would be 60:40 in your favour with a deferred charge (a mesher) in your husband''s favour.

However, in light of your medical condition it might be prudent to obtain a long term prognosis as this might have an effect on your future working capacity, at least until the children reach majority.

Charles

Hmmm, is that something that someone from the medical profession will do?

The long-term prognosis (based on what I know of the condition), is that it is likely that I will eventually be retired early due to health issues.

In the short term, I am physically capable and so will have no problem in being the main carer of our two children until they at least reach the end of full time education....