school fees

We have already seen a solicitor but my ex husband had decided to do things his own way instead of having expensive legal fees.
He has used all his savings to buy a house and says he can now only pay school fees for one child ( 3 half years left at school)
He wants me to pay for the other one( 8 half years left.)
For the last 3 years I have paid half of one child, which I am happy to continue doing.
I am self employed and earn about £23,000 per year.
He is employed and earns £100,000 per year.
he is paying me £850.00 maintenance a month.
I have the family home with no mortgage. He has a small mortgage on his new home.
I just want to know the best way to resolve this without expensive legal fees. He has ran out of money for legal fees( so he says)

Ok, taking into account the maintenace (I assume that is on top of the school fees) his income is around 3 x yours so it would be reasonable for him to poay 75% of the total school fees and for you to pay 25%. Which is what you are efectively doing at the moment. When the older child finishes school, ou continue to split the fees in that % (or adjust it of your income has gone uip compared to his at that time) so you are each paying for both of the children.

It would however be reasonable to lok at your outgoings as well as your income to see whether this is reasonable - for instance, is his mortgage significantly higher than yours? What are your respective incomes once each of you has paid your mortgage, and after taking into account the spousal maintenace?

What is fair also depends on the over all finacial settlement - have you already split capital and pensions?

Just because he choses not to have a legal advisor doesn''t mean you should do the same. i would suggest that you se a solicitor who will be able to tailor their advice better to your specifc circumstnaces.

However, one consideration may be - he says he can''t afford the school fees due to buying a house - but he presumably know what the fees were, and the two of you were commited to private education, before he bought the house, so why sis nt not take them into avcont in consdering what to buy?

How big is the proeprty - could he have bought a smaller property and still met his housingneeds and had space for the children when they are with him? Would it be possible for him to downsize? If he has deliberately bought a more expensive hous then he needs and is then caliming he can''t afford it that is different to a scenario where he has bought a reasonable property and the relaity is that you joint finances simply don''t stretch to running 2 households and maintaining both childnre in private education, in which case you may need to start looking into whether your childnre might be eligable for any scholoarships or bursaries or whther you may have to consider changing schools.