Help...Is this a reasonable divorce offer? or should i go to court?

[mg04]

Hi, am new to this forum but am hoping someone can give me some advice.
I'm currently going through a divorce - together for 14y. married for 5 of those, 2 kids of 16 and 12.
My ex has finally decided to make me an offer after months of stalling as he had been made redundant at the beginning of the year but has a new job starting next month.
He has offered to sign the house over to me - £90,000 mortgage but worth 270,000 in return for him keeping his pension and redundancy. his redundancy is somewhere between 60,000 and 75,000 ( he wont tell me exactly )
My pension CETV is 11,747 (only had for 3years as looked after kids)
His pension total valuation is £274,446.00 - for some reason he says he cant get a CETV
Although taking the house sounds like a good plan, am concerened that it wont be in the long run , ie when i get to pension age. Am not out for milking him dry but at the same time, I dont want him walking away with a far better deal that leaves me high and dry in the future
Do i speak to a solicitor or a financial advisor...or both? would i be better off going to court?
please help me

[SoupDragon]

I would not trust him to be telling you the truth. I would speak to a solicitor.

[happymummy44]

Hi mg. I went through a similar situ although my children are younger. We had a first court hearing (similarly after many months of waiting for an offer). Both had good barristers but it was simply the most expensive waste of time ever. To go through and pay for the full financial court process could nearly have paid off my mortgage! It is hard to walk away when you feel that you are being "done over".

If you are happy now and able to manage, then it may be best to walk away with the deal on the table. Who knows how your life will have changed by the time you retire. Good luck.

[PatsysDouble]

I am a novice at this, but that sounds like a rubbish offer.
Unless my maths is way out, your total assets are worth £526,000.
At a starting point of 50/50, you should get £263,000.
The equity in the house is £160,000, your pension is £11,747 so surely you should be looking at getting around another £90,000 from him.

I just checked a rough estimate of my pension CETV value this morning - at around 20K that will give me a pension of about £2,000 A YEAR!!!! Don't underestimate your needs in retirement. To all intents and purposes you are going to have no money other than the state pension at the moment.

I think you need to speak to a solicitor to find out what you 'should' get. It will be worth your while spending a bit on this as there seem to be huge numbers involved.

[Collaborate]

There's a lot more to it than that. You need to get some proper legal advice, not from a message board.

[MOSagain]

Agree with collaborate as it is not that straightforward. Am assuming the eldest DC is not his?
Also, I find it hard to believe he cannot get a CETV. He will have to.

Before any solicitor can advise you whether this is fair and reasonable and indeed before you could submit a consent order to the Court (assuming that you did agree on that settlement) then there would need to be full financial disclosure including full documentary evidence.

I would suggest that you start collating your financial documenation and you ask him to do the same.

[RedHelenB]

depends whether or not you want to line the pockets of lawyers. How much child maintenance would you be getting - enough to afford the remaining mortgage? It'a the CETV value that counts nit the amount put in so the assets as you write them don't necessarily equate to assets of £526,000.

Do you work now? You also need to bear in mind staying financially linked to someone can be very draining -a lot of men can resent paying child maintenance let alone spousal!!!

But as has been suggested, if you feel this isn't right for you get advice as to what is.

[Collaborate]

RedHelenB is also available to conduct open heart surgery for anyone who needs it.

[SoupDragon]

"if you feel this isn't right for you get advice as to what is."

No. Get advice full stop.

[nkf]

There is a big gap between going to court and speaking to a solicitor. It's probably a first offer and a good solicitor will help you negotiate a better one.
Good luck.

[sneezecakesmum]

You really really need proper legal advice here sooner rather than later. There is far more at stake here and too many variable to risk listening to anyone other than an experience family solicitor.

You won't necessarily have to have a major court battle(s) with barristers and all the £££. If finances are disclosed and worked out fairly and your solicitor is in agreement, it can all be done via mediation.

definitely dont except your exs sums, no doubt he HAS seen a solicitor.

[mg04]

thanks for all the advice .
MOSagain, eldest is his, we split 2 yrs ago but werent in a position to start proceedings, now we are.
I have all my financial stuff ready and have given it to him (we have been to 1 mediation session and thats what she asked) but he's stalling with his.
I just didnt know whether it sounded a reasonable offer and was told that solicitors quite often post on here
have now got an appt arranged with a financial advisor to explain all the pension stuff and see what he thinks

[nkf]

Please, use a lawyer.

[MOSagain]

LOL at Collaborate

[Collaborate]

mg04 you'll need to speak to a solicitor. They won't be able to tell you who to invest your money with, A financial advisor will do that. But they don't know the first thing about the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, and the thousands of cases interpreting that in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court since then, nor should they.

[STIDW]

I'm not a solicitor but I'm rather fed up of hearing about cases where not paying for legal advice has been a false economy.

As I understand it there was a problem with the way pubic sector CETV's were calculated and the software had to be updated so there were no valuations for a while. Apparently there is now a backlog so many people can't get CETVs at the moment.

[mg04]

sorry, i shouldve said, i have every intention of seeing a solicitor , just wondered what people thought who have already been through it or are going through it now.

STIDW - i work for the public sector and was in the back log, but i have mine now. He doesn't, req his before me (apparently) and still hasnt had it (apparently)

Was told last night that as we've been seperated for 2yrs now that his redundancy may not come into it....does any1 know if this is true?

[SoupDragon]

"Was told last night that as we've been seperated for 2yrs now that his redundancy may not come into it"

It is possible. However, I have just received a large chunk of my XHs assets which were accrued post separation. As I understand it this was because I was still supporting the family to enable him to earn this and the job was the same as he was doing prior to separation. It isn't a clear cut thing.

[RedHelenB]

Please bear in mind that although Collaborate & others claim to be lawyers on the internet you have no way of knowing!!! (I am not saying they aren't either)As I said, you seek advice if you want but I have a feeling you are posting on the internet to get peoples opinions. But I stand by my case of a lot of divorced people who have spent a lot of money on solicitors & ended up no/not much better off than the original offer.

[SoupDragon]

Well, I ended up with a hell of a lot more than I would have done without a solicitor. My fees were no where near mortgage proportions.

And I don't believe Collaborate did claim to be a solicitor.

[MOSagain]

oh yes, we just claim to be lawyers for the hell of it. What do you want us to do, take photos of our practicing certificates and post them on our profile?

Yes, people do sometimes spend a lot of money on Solicitors and end up not much better off. That in my experience is normally when they are not listening to their lawyers advice and are often bitter and seeking revenge/blood. On the other hand, there are also those people who decide not to seek legal advice, perhaps following advice such as that from RedHelen on internet forums. They think they have resoloved matters between them and then years down the line it comes back and bites them in the arse when they realise their 'agreement' is not worth the paperwork and is not legally binding.

You get what you pay for.

[olgaga]

For goodness sake, see a family law solicitor! You won't necessarily end up in court, but you need to know your rights to get the best out of mediation.

[Collaborate]

RedHelenB: I hear that some people who go into hospital actually die in there. Bloody hell! They were alive when they went in! Do you think the doctors killed them? You never know!

Don't think you should line the pockets of doctors too. I believe MN have health forums. Perhaps you could self diagnose if you fall ill.

[olgaga]

But I stand by my case of a lot of divorced people who have spent a lot of money on solicitors & ended up no/not much better off than the original offer.

RedHelen that's not necessarily the solicitor's fault. Anyway, aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself? Going to a solicitor does not mean you will end up in court. What's important is knowing your rights - certainly before you accept the first offer that comes your way - as OP is being pressured to do.

[STIDW]

Opinions aren't always reliable, they may be out of date or skewed because of a particular agenda or because of misunderstandings about the law. Anyone, even a solicitor, can misread a post and get the wrong end of the stick or make a mistake. People seek independent legal advice about their particular circumstances so that they can make informed decisions.

It's true some divorcing spouses end up not being any better off than the original settlement. However, week in week out there are a lot of lay people who, far more often than solicitors, make very serious mistakes and are left at a huge disadvantage. They only discover later and of course there is no redress for not being properly informed or acting on opinions given on the internet.

[MOSagain]