Pending Divorce...financial entitlement....

[honeybabe]

I have been separated from my husband for 18 months after 18 years of marriage.The unexpected split was his fault and for the sake of my sanilty and that of my teenage son I did not wish to have all the gory details of his actions aired in a divorce court so I agreed to a 2 years separation then divorce. I have since bought him out of our marital home and paid off the mortgage after my father gave me the money.If this hadnt happened neither of us would have had enough equity if the house was sold to buy somewhere else.(so in my eyes he basically benefitted from my fathers generousity) He has since bought himself a nice 2 bed flat with a mortgage (the same amount that was on the marital home) and the lump sum I gave him.We have tried to keep things amicable for the sake of our son but i do feel he has come out of this very well.I have had to give up work due to ill health/being single parent and although he pays child maintenance things are a struggle. He has recently told me that his parents are selling their home to downsize and will give him a lump sum of 50K when they do. I am wondering if he receives this before we are divorced whether i can claim any part of it in the divorce settlement? Any advice will be welcome!

[themas]

You need to ask your solicitor about this. If he/she says yes, then one of the problems I can see is that your husband (if he finds out what you are planning) will simply delay getting the money until after the divorce is settled.

There is also the broader issue of your relationship with your husband - not so far as you are concerned because your post seems to indicate you would not be worried about the relationship getting worse - but so far as the knock on effect on your son is concerned. I have seen cases where divorce battles over money become very contentious and both parties end up much more bitter and estranged than at the outset. In my opinion it is very difficult to avoid this having an adverse effect on the children. (I'm not trying to lecture you and you may have already thought of this but it is something to consider if you haven't.)

[lady_p_gold]

Well its a bit late now I suppose but I think you were given bad advice, you would probably not have had to buy him out and do all the things you did and he would not have got off so lightly, and if he had an affair or something they don't really bother with all the 'gory' details these days they don't affix blame etc. I fyou were married for 18 years you would have probably been awarded most of the house anyway. However I think you would be entitled to share in the 50k as it is part of the marital pot, but as previously said he might just delay it.

[honeybabe]

Thanks for that.....I realise that blame is not apportioned these days but the fact that our split involved sordid topics I did not wish to be forever recorded in hard print ,was the reason why I didnt file for divorce. I had to do something as far as buying him out was concerned as he was in rented accommodation that was costing a fortune and he couldnt afford to pay me any maintenence. I was in no position to sell up and move as along with the trauma of the split I had just been diagnosed with M.E. and was not working and was only in receipt of incapacity benefit. I had to take some action to "keep him happy" and not only that in a round about way help to provide a place where my son would visit him as he wouldnt when he was in rented as it was so small.I thank God my father bailed me out! I have wondered if his mention of the 50k is a tactic of his to delay the divorce as he probably knows I would want a piece of it. At the moment it feels like he "owes" me as at the time of the split he had run up a huge debt (unknown to me) that his mother promptly just paid off,no questions,when throughout our marriage we had struggled financially when I now know she could have helped when things got really tough and I was working 3 jobs to keep our heads above water.(probably why my health failed in the end ...I was on burn out!!) I did take a larger chunk out of the house as I had my own place when I met him and in addition had put a lump sum into the marital home which I insisted I have back.We then worked out the "buy out" price based on the equity left after that deduction, minus the mortgage.It should have been a 60/40 split. In fact the amount he had was slightly more than 40% as he required that amount to buy his new place. You are right when you say it helps to keep things amicable and thats the reason I went down the route I did.I didnt want to be forced out of my home of 15 years that I had put alot into not only emotionally but financially.