Need some advice pls on settlement

I hope someone can help pls. I have been married for 24 years, I am 49. I have 2 children aged 19 and 16. I used to work part time (around children as he travels overseas a lot and works long hours ) until I got cancer 6 years ago - treatment and side effects thereof left me unwell and unable to work. Husband wants to divorce me. He earns +£80k per year (net £4700 pm), we have approx £480k equity in home (4 bed house) and approx £50k in savings (20k joint acc , £30 k in his account) . He also has a pension worth approx £100k I don't have a pension or any savings or investments in my own right. He wants to either buy me out of house (kids will live with me) or sell and split house 50/50. He would give me £20k from joint account and £400 pm maintenance until youngest is 18. He doesn't want to give away anything regarding pension. He feels this is a fair settlement. Is this correct and would a judge agree to this if submitted in a Consent Order? Any advice gratefully received. Thank you

Speak to a solicitor. Whilst there may be some truth in the splitting the house equity evenly if you can both afford a 2 bed place based on £240k but given your age and circumstances and disparity in pay it seems drastically unlikely that he can justify no pension sharing or the maintenance amounts

Also probably worth speaking to the helpline on here too for a chat

Thank you for your reply. I will try and speak to someone on the helpline for some advice.

The pension valuation sounds incredibly low for your ages and incomes. I'm that age, earn under half of that and my pension value is three times what you've quoted for his.
What's the value of your pension?

The courts will take into account ability to recover financially as a result of one's income, so income disparity is important.

There are many types of financial settlements possible, both ordered by court (expensive to argue it out through solicitors) and arranged by consent through solicitors or by consent through mediation or by consent without solicitors.

The usual arrangement for children is support until they leave further education (age 19), or higher eduction (age 22 - this is rarer now that students get loans etc), there can be a Mesher order which preserves the house as a residence for the children until a trigger event such as age or remarriage.

The CSA basis for maintenance is 20% of net monthly income for 2 children, 15% for one, so £400pcm seems ridiculously low from £4700pcm income.

I would seek legal advice before agreeing to anything like this. Ensure you get financial disclosure documents and accurate figures. Get the house valued by a local estate agent too.

Hi. I’m nearly at the second court hearing and in a similar situation to you. My husband earns about 150k but I’ve not worked so I could look after kids while he built v successful business. My earning power is next to nothing - I’m 47, started a nursing degree two years ago and just had to defer cos the kids were all being a bit tricky. Boys are 12,16,18. I’ll let you know what my barrister says next week but just for reference my husband offered me :
-250k of our 330k pensions,
-to continue to pay off our mortgage until it was finished and then hand it to me (so £650k house mortgage free),
-100k flat (mortgage free) and
-maintenance for each boy in line with csa figure and same again for me until the youngest turns 18 (£750pcm for each of us except eldest who’s just about to go to uni)

My barrister looked at it, said it was a ‘good start’ but it doesn’t allow me any sort of income - i’d be living in an expensive house with no money to
actually spend, especially when the kids maintenance dries up. Said I’d need an income for life of £25k /year or £400,000 lump sum to even things up
Husband not impressed but barrister very definitely thinks 50/50 is massively inadequate given the disparity in earning power and me having the boys full time, and that’s what the offer above amounted to. Our problem is that lots of our wealth is tied up in shares in the business so not sure how we can sort it in the immediate future

I'd say that was pretty good Nikkimo, but I'd push for the maintenance until youngest turns 22. That way you would be > 55 and able to draw down on your pension. The house would be far larger than you need at that point. I would sell and relocate to a smaller property, and buy outright a second investment property for rental, or even two investment properties in a cheaper area - doesn't even need to be close, but a student town like Portsmouth, Bangor, Hatfield, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester etc. will guarantee you rental income.

Longer reply at the top outlines my situation but failed to say that, very simply, your husband’s proposal seems MASSIVELY UNFAIR to me!