Prevent husband from obtaining 50% of my house in divorce

[Dogeared]

Hello I’d really appreciate some help, please. My husband and I have been married for 7 years. I owned the house prior to our marriage and it is in my sole name. He paid off my mortgage of £50,000 and the house is worth approx £500,000. It’s likely we are going to divorce, can I transfer the house into my children’s names, or a trust, to prevent him from getting half the value ? I would pay him the £50,000 back. Thank you

[Scot22]

You seem to have a reasonable approach.
I think he acquired an interest in the house of £5000. In my opinion that should be repaid, you've already said you will. However how much value has been added since he did.
In addition he should get an appropriate share of the increase.
If you are the sole owner I can't see why you can't do whatever you want.
A layman's opinion. I will be interested in what better qualified people post.

[Sam101]

In addition to the £50,000 for paying off the mortgage, he could reasonably claim that the £50,000 in property value has increased over the time that the mortgage has been paid off. So perhaps not the 7 years, but from the date of mortgage redemption. I doubt he could try and buy more than that growth.

Be careful of placing the property, or part of it into Trust, as that moves it away from your control for the future and this Forum does not have enough information about your position to make suggestions. If he intends to make a larger claim, then trying to place the property in another's name would not work. Financial settlements on divorce need to be agreed, so keep that in mind.

However, if there are circumstances where placing the property in Trust is necessary at some time, then a solicitor, STEP qualifications, where Trusts knowledge is essential, could help you do this.

If you wish to ask more, then do try and give more information on the position of your marriage and children's ages and if it is your intention to stay there and for him to go, which would sound more likely with children involved.

[Dogeared]

Thank you for the replies. My children are 30 and 28, neither lives with me. My intention would be to stay and him to leave, at the moment he says he will not ask for anything but I’m not sure how he could afford to live. He is 64 and has a pension pot worth about £350,000, I’m 58 and my pension pot is worth about £250,000 if that’s relevant.

[MIKE770]

his pension pot £350,000 then he can afford to live on the income from it blimey mine is less than that by hundreds

[Sam101]

From that information it would seem that he is not too badly off. If you would be happy to manage with your own pension and can get his agreement that he is happy to manage on his and walk away, then get the divorce moving as soon as you can. Bear in mind that you could move to something smaller and have more money for the future without him. Looking at the future, if you have money to invest, keep it in cash for now as markets are terrible and you don't want some commission happy adviser investing in equities and you loose a lot. Good luck and be happy. Xx

[Sam101]

You did not mention your age or if you have employment or a business. The pension pot you have is not huge, but other income from the State could add to what you can do with your own pension and it may be that a SIPP managed by yourself may be appropriate. You could then manage add hoc drawdown supplemented by the pension.All sorts of variations may be possible with the right information.

[dslippy]

Pensions are never big enough.
There do seem to be enough assets to manage some deal which keeps you in the house.
It is important to get this settled formally. Each of you is entltled to a formal order, and a private deal between you can be set aside easily.
Dispute costs can be signficant, Take care. Better to lose 25k more than you think you are entitled to than to spend an extra 40k in legal fees.