Divorce and the home

[acorn]

My husband left the marital home 2 years ago. In August last year he agreed to a transfer of equity as we were chatting amicably and he wanted to rid himself of some of his guilt for what he had done which led to him leaving in the first place. The transfer of equity is about a week from completion. He has signed over and i am waiting for the documents to come back from land registry now. The solicitor for transfer does not deal with divorce or family matters so when my husband became awful again and met someone else he demanded i get a divorce as hed wasted all his life on me and the kids (charming). Anyway, cut long story etc i filed divorce papers October 2005. Now im nearing completion on house i asked solicitor about if my husband who has since the split gotten huge loan out should jack in his job and then not pay his loan, would he have any comeback on house because it was deemed a 'gift', ie he didnt get anything for it. She cannot advise me so can anyone tell me if i can get some sort of insurance or whatever to protect me against this happening as i really dont want to find myself with his debts. I checked with legal advice but it will cost me hundreds to get a consent order and the bancruptcy court told me this would not cover should he declare bancruptcy. But would it cover me if he just failed to pay the loan but kept his job etc. Help!! Getting conflicting advice and would really rather not pay a solicitor if i dont have to - very very limited funds!!

[lady_p_gold]

This is difficult because obviously you really need legal advice. Thing is are you going through all the divorce and everything without any sort of legal help? What about his pension, what about life insurance - all those things need to be considered and if he has a pension then you need advice about a possible pension sharing order. It is very easy at this stage to rush into it all and just 'want to be rid of it'. But there are children to support. Is he paying any maintenance etc. and if there is now a new woman in his life you need to protect yourself and the children. Hopefully someone on here may be able to spell out the legal situation. Until your divorce comes through then up until then everything is still all part of the marital 'pot' - his debt, the house, your debt, your savings, his savings, cars etc. etc. it is all a big cake and someone should be deciding how it is divided and making sure that it is all cut and dried and that there can be no comebacks later.

[lady_p_gold]

Having said the above there are two sides to it of course, and he is transferring, or at the time you wrote this was transferring the equity to you, and so that has to be taken into consideration as far as fairness goes.

[Didwot]

Yes, it is a transaction at an undervalue, and if he were to become bankrupt the transfer could be set aside. Your soplicitor will need to look into the possibility of insurance against that risk.