What is there of legally financial obligations to pay to my wife?

Hi all,

Currently separated from my wife and I have a question that I hope someone might have the answer to.

After a divorce and Consent Order is complete, other than child maintenance, am I legally obliged to financially pay for anything? for example to contribute towards housing cost to ensure our kids do not has a loss in quality of life?

A quick background is that we have a joint mortgage and both our names is on the title deed. My wife would like to stay in the house with the kids but do not have the means to buy me out. I have suggested that we can leave the mortgage for a couple of years and then hopefully she can buy me out or she sells the house and we divide the profits left after selling.

It is my belief that what normally happens in a divorce, even with kids is that the financial assets gets divided and that is that. I have to pay child maintenance as the kids would mostly be with their mother.. If someone know if that is correct or really wrong, please do let me know.

Best regards
Ronnie

The terms of the order will determine your future liability.

If you both agree to separate your finances and go your separate ways then you will no longer have any liabilities. If you were to agree to pay maintenance that would be an ongoing liability (which in most circumstances can be varied during the course of the maintenance period).

Your settlement that you proposed is known as a mesher agreement where payment of your share of the property is deferred until a trigger event. Normally the trigger events would be death, remarriage or the youngest child reaching a particular age (e.g. 18 or after completing tertiary education).

From what you say there is an informal agreement as you say "..we can leave the mortgage for a couple of years and then hopefully she can buy me out or she sells the house..".

The question is what happens in 2 years or so? If your ex has no goal to work towards it is unlikely that anything will occur. You need to know the date that you will be released from the mortgage and you receive your share and how much that share will be. Only then will you both know what has to be done.

In relation to payment of the mortgage it is fairly standard for the person remaining in the property to be responsible for the mortgage payments. Sometimes this isn't possible due to earning capacity so each case is different.

Charles