What Is A Fair Settlement?

Hi there,
I am currently working through my financial settlement in mediation and am wondering what a sensible end goal would be.
(Husband (me) = H , Wife = W)
Ages: H =51 , W = 44

2 Children aged 10 and 7

How many nights the children spend with each parent; 3 with H, 4 with W

8 years marriage, 12 year pre-marriage cohabitation

Respective incomes; H = £50k , W = £35k

Respective outgoings; Expected outgoings each around £2,200 per month (inc mortgage) (not allowing for £370 child maintenance for me)

Assets - Joint capital = £325k , H sole capital = £35k
[H had capital worth around £30k at the start of relationship, which was worth around £80k at the start of the marriage]

Current pension CETVs (both NHS): H=£300k W=£90k

No liabilities - mortgage already deducted for joint capital.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I have been going through this am now at the FDA stage (FDA). My children however are now 19, and 18. I paid £350 each for children (£700) total ( 0 nights with me, as they were teenagers, and the to and fro-ing is disturbing and counter-productive)

Co-habitation is counted now, so it will be treated as if your marriage length was 20 years.

Starting point for sharing of all assets is 50:50, but if your wife is not able to work full-time she will get more, at least 60%, I would have thought.

The Divorce Calculator didn't take me that long, filling in a form E will take a lot longer. That might give you an indication. You probably won't like the results.

Thanks Fleeced573

My wife is able to work full time, and often does more hours that me. Her contract is for 33 hours though.
Hopefully I can argue 50:50 on that basis.

I feel your pain with paying £700 per month. I feel lucky to have good contact with my children, and now have a "lives with order" to ensure that my ex can't reduce my contact further.

My main uncertainty is how my pension is likely to be affected.

Biggest factor will be how much a 3 bed place for each of you will cost and your mortgage abilities. With a higher salary technically can borrow more so there may be an argument for more of the £360k equity to go in the other direction. You can then argue to offset the pensions based on that as you are closer to being able to use your pension whereas your ex still has up to 2 decades to contribute also.

But this is all dependent on many factors that we don't have enough to decide one way or another. Kids and housing are the priority so that decides the remainder normally