Financle settlement advice please

Can anyone give us an idea where to start. Things are amicable so far, but yesterday a solicitor told me there was very little likelihood of me having to pay spousal maintenance to husband (I earn more) whilst another told him it was likely. Would like some realistic advice so we can try to agree without involving courts:

Married 10 years, cohabiting 6
Me 43, him 45
No kids
Savings: 18K
House equity (we will sell): approx. 200K
Early redemption fees : 16K

No other real savings, income or loans
Our pensions are almost identical (40K each) so I feel we may as well leave them alone.

My salary 67K
His salary 26K

He will be made redundant end of year & will receive approx. 7 months net income as redundancy. However he is fit and healthy and there is no real reason he will not get another job of similar income.

Given the disparity in salaries, and the upcoming redundancy, can anyone advise what would be fair?
I would obviously prefer not to do maintenance payments but I appreciate that an asset split in his favour is probably inevitable.
If maintenance payments are thought fair due to redundancy, what term would be fair?

The key here is going to be the cost of rehousing.

How much would a decent 1-2 bed property cost to buy?

How long would you need to keep the FMH to avoid the redemption penalties?

You are better placed to recover financially and to acquire a reasonable mortgage. If he is able to be mortgage free, I think you would be better placed to argue for no or limited SM. If he has to use his redundancy payment towards a property, you may need to pay SM in the short term while he finds new employment or possibly retrains.

Hadenoughnow

Thanks, very useful. Its a tricky question, because of course after redundancy, he is not tied to this area, but I am due to job.

His family all live in an area where a 1-2 bed would easily fall under 100K, so there is an argument he could move there and be mortgage free. In this immediate area, 1-2 bed is probably 180-220K, but 20 miles in one direction (and still same distance from likely workplace), it would cost 110-150)K.


I am not completely anti paying SM but would really want it to be for defined period, i.e. 1-2 years, is that reasonable?