More on housing
Readers' questions...
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Q: Housing
Hi. My husband is demanding that I give up my full time job in order to keep house and support him in his job. I do not want to do this because I love my job and he does not earn enough to support us both. He is my second husband and we have been married for 8 years. My marriage settlement from my first divorce was the family home and my second husband came to live with me there with my sons. He did not have a house of his own when I met him, he was renting. He has borrowed thousands off the mortgage, which has now doubled since we married. My sons left home in 2004 and will not speak to me until I divorce this man. I am desperate to get out of this situation, but my husband says he is entitiled to 50% of the equity remaining in the house. If he is right, it means I will not be able to afford to buy another house and live independently. He has admitted that he is still with me only because he knows that he will eventually benefit from the value in the house. There is around £170k equity in the home. I hope you can advise me.
A: Val says...
If you're thinking of getting a divorce, it's really important for you to go and get some legal advice. When you divorce, the law treats your home, savings and possessions as a 'pool of assets' belonging to both of you rather than one or the other. If you went to court, the court would have to take a number of things into account to decide how to split that 'pool of assets' between you, including each of your incomes/earning capacities, the contributions each of you have made or are likely to make to the welfare of the family (this includes looking after the home or caring for the family), how long you have been married for and your needs. You should speak to a family law solicitor to find out how the law would apply in your particular circumstances. You can find your nearest family law solicitor by calling Community Legal Advice on: 0845 608 1122, or visiting their website by clicking on the link at the right of this page under the heading, 'Links to other websites'. You might want to speak to a solicitor who is a member of Resolution. This is a group of lawyers that specialise in family law and have a code of practice requiring them to work in a way that will encourage you and your partner to put your differences aside to reach a fair agreement.
If you do decide to divorce, there are a number of different ways you can sort out the financial split. You might want to use your solicitor to negotiate arrangements for you, but you could also try family mediation. Mediation brings you and your partner together for a series of face-to-face discussions to help you agree on the arrangements between you. The discussions will take place with a mediator, who is trained to help you work out the issues you need to sort out, think of your options, decide what would work in practice and come to an agreement about what's best. This can often work out a lot cheaper than getting a solicitor to negotiate everything for you (although you will still need to pay a solicitor for some legal advice).
Mediators are trained to make sure that both people get a chance to speak and to put their point of view across during the discussions. But if you think that your ex is much better at talking and negotiating than you are or you feel intimidated by your partner so that it would be impossible to reach a fair agreement, then you might feel happier if your solicitor negotiated arrangements for you.
If you want to find out more about family mediation, give the Family Mediation Helpline a call on: 0845 60 26 627. They can give you some general information about family mediation, give you advice on whether your situation might be suitable for family mediation, work out whether you could get legal aid to pay for the cost of mediation (and the legal advice you get alongside it) and refer you to your local family mediation service. You can also find out more by visiting the Family mediation pages of our website.
I do hope this helps and that you manage to sort everything out.
Val.
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