Is this a fair settlement?

I am hoping if someone can provide me with some advice.

My wife and I have agreed that we can see no future in our marriage and that it is probably best for our 3 children that we move on. We don’t fight or argue, but there is no love in the relationship. We have agreed that if possible we would like to make our own arrangements to terminate the marriage to avoid any nastiness of contesting each other. This is where the problem lies. It’s been 3 weeks now since we discussed this and agreed that we would go away and think about what we both wanted from the breakup. The stalling appears to be that we would both like to see each other’s hand first. So I am at the point where I want to get things moving so I would like to know what you guys think of putting the following arrangements on the table with a view to having them written into a consent agreement:-

Supporting information:-

We have been married for 7 years and have 3 children aged 14, 7 and 5.
Live and work in England and would use the English system (seen the post by the Scottish guy)
I work and earn £32K, which includes bonuses but they are regular.
My wife does not work, but would be entitled to ~£17K benefits when using the Direct Gov site.
We do not have any savings.
My pensions probably amount to about £5K a year on maturity.
I have 3 rental properties with £100K equity.
The marital home has about £80K equity.

I would like to propose to my wife that we split things as follows:-

I sign over the title of the MH to my wife and stay on the mortgage if necessary.
I would like 50/50 shared access to the children and will pay £460 per month maintenance.
I would like to keep the rental properties, and use this to draw down a £20K deposit for a house so that I can have the children over.
Based on the benefits my wife would be entitled to, we would both be left with a similar amount of money after paying bills, mortgage and maintenance (not much!!).
My work pension has accrued but only really worth £5K at most per annum. I would be happy to transfer half of this to her also.

I think this is a fair arrangement, but I am also aware that if it was contested in court I would probably be looking at losing the shirt off my back.

I would greatly value any opinions on this to get an idea whether I am thinking along the right lines or not.

Bob

Dont forget your wife has 4 mouths to feed, whereas you have only one.

Hi Sillywoman,

I am actually asking for 50/50 shared responsiblity with the children so half of the time I will also have 4 mouths to feed.

Does this balance out?

If not would it be a case of upping the child maintenance to say £500 / £550?

Bob

Hi Sillywoman,

I am actually asking for 50/50 shared responsiblity with the children so half of the time I will also have 4 mouths to feed.

Does this balance out?

If not would it be a case of upping the child maintenance to say £500 / £550?

Bob

How old are you both.

Married seven years but one child fourteen, are they all children from this relationship and if so how long did you live together before marrying.

Can your wife work or is she ill perhaps.

Hi Dukey,

No, the eldest child is from a previous relationship of my wifes. We were co-habiting about 12-18 months before getting married, but I have always thought of the eldest as one of my own.

My wife could work and she has asked me to help her write a CV so that she can start looking. Whether or not that will materialise into anything pro-active may be a different matter.

All children are at school now so I dont see why she couldn''t work.

Bob.

Hello Bob

How old are you and how old is your wife?.