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I am posting this on behalf of my cousin. As a family we are trying to best advise and support him after years of extreme emotional abuse, coercive control, and now discovering that his wife is having an affair. He and his wife have recently separated and he intends to file for divorce. We anticipate resistance, disagreement, and obstacles from the wife at every step, be it deciding what to do with the house or access to the four children (aged 13, 11, 4, and 2).
My cousin is determined to sell the family home. He says he will be unable to afford the mortgage of around £1,000 per month plus maintenance to the wife and children while finding somewhere of his own to live. He is a self-employed telecoms engineer and she is part-time pub barmaid. He is saying that if the wife refuses to sell the house he will stop paying the mortgage payments and allow it to be repossessed. He will do so even if a court rules that his wife can stay in the marital home with him having to pay the mortgage.
The wife has made an offer that she will not pursue him for maintenance if he pays the mortgage and allows her and the kids to live in the family home. He is having none of it. Understandably, he is thinking emotionally — he cannot stomach the idea of her moving her boyfriend into the house at his expense after years of the crap he has already put up with from her.
On the other hand, trying to take a more logical and rational approach, I think it's a reasonable offer: he can't escape liability for payment to her in some form as the cause for the marital breakdown is totally irrelevant to any divorce settlement, and I don't see why it matters whether he's paying off a mortgage on the family house or rent for her in another house. It's certainly better, as far as emotional considerations intrude on this, than spousal maintenance for her to do whatever she likes with the money.
I also think it offers a rare opportunity for some sort of agreement or meeting of minds with an otherwise difficult, vindictive, cruel woman when dragging out a disagreement will result in a very costly, nasty battle. I see some wiggle room for him to come back to her with a counter-offer, e.g. he agrees to pay the mortgage until the youngest child is 18 but on condition that the house is his, not the wife's, afterwards. This way he doesn't lose an investment for himself/his children either in the long term.
My first question is: if they can come to an agreement along the lines that I've recommended, how exactly would this be recorded given that the transfer of the wife's portion of the house would be transferred to the husband at a future time? Or would the ownership be divided into a tenancy in common and the wife's share transferred to my cousin immediately/on divorce with some clause elsewhere in the settlement entitling the wife to occupy the house until the youngest child is 18? Does my suggestion of this even sound like a decent deal in the circumstances?
If my cousin still dislikes this course of action and the house is sold, as he currently hopes for, is the equity likely to be split in the wife's favour (not 50/50) given that she will have day-to-day care of the children and less future earning potential (she has already indicated that if the house is sold, she thinks she should get more than half)?
I'm also concerned whether maintenance for the wife and children, if the house is sold, will amount to more than the monthly £1,000 that the mortgage is costing him and which the wife is willing to forgo maintenance for, so he ends up worse off in practical terms as well as having no house to show for it at the end of this sorry saga. I don't know his average monthly earnings but I'm assuming that maintenance is calculated as a percentage of income. Is there a ballpark percentage of his earnings that it would be likely for him to have to pay if they can't agree between themselves?
Thanks in advance
My cousin is determined to sell the family home. He says he will be unable to afford the mortgage of around £1,000 per month plus maintenance to the wife and children while finding somewhere of his own to live. He is a self-employed telecoms engineer and she is part-time pub barmaid. He is saying that if the wife refuses to sell the house he will stop paying the mortgage payments and allow it to be repossessed. He will do so even if a court rules that his wife can stay in the marital home with him having to pay the mortgage.
The wife has made an offer that she will not pursue him for maintenance if he pays the mortgage and allows her and the kids to live in the family home. He is having none of it. Understandably, he is thinking emotionally — he cannot stomach the idea of her moving her boyfriend into the house at his expense after years of the crap he has already put up with from her.
On the other hand, trying to take a more logical and rational approach, I think it's a reasonable offer: he can't escape liability for payment to her in some form as the cause for the marital breakdown is totally irrelevant to any divorce settlement, and I don't see why it matters whether he's paying off a mortgage on the family house or rent for her in another house. It's certainly better, as far as emotional considerations intrude on this, than spousal maintenance for her to do whatever she likes with the money.
I also think it offers a rare opportunity for some sort of agreement or meeting of minds with an otherwise difficult, vindictive, cruel woman when dragging out a disagreement will result in a very costly, nasty battle. I see some wiggle room for him to come back to her with a counter-offer, e.g. he agrees to pay the mortgage until the youngest child is 18 but on condition that the house is his, not the wife's, afterwards. This way he doesn't lose an investment for himself/his children either in the long term.
My first question is: if they can come to an agreement along the lines that I've recommended, how exactly would this be recorded given that the transfer of the wife's portion of the house would be transferred to the husband at a future time? Or would the ownership be divided into a tenancy in common and the wife's share transferred to my cousin immediately/on divorce with some clause elsewhere in the settlement entitling the wife to occupy the house until the youngest child is 18? Does my suggestion of this even sound like a decent deal in the circumstances?
If my cousin still dislikes this course of action and the house is sold, as he currently hopes for, is the equity likely to be split in the wife's favour (not 50/50) given that she will have day-to-day care of the children and less future earning potential (she has already indicated that if the house is sold, she thinks she should get more than half)?
I'm also concerned whether maintenance for the wife and children, if the house is sold, will amount to more than the monthly £1,000 that the mortgage is costing him and which the wife is willing to forgo maintenance for, so he ends up worse off in practical terms as well as having no house to show for it at the end of this sorry saga. I don't know his average monthly earnings but I'm assuming that maintenance is calculated as a percentage of income. Is there a ballpark percentage of his earnings that it would be likely for him to have to pay if they can't agree between themselves?
Thanks in advance
