Introduction

What is going to happen to the house or flat? For most people, their home is their single biggest asset as well as a place to live. When deciding what should be done about it, you need to weigh up both these things. You and any children you have will need two homes now, which is likely to be the most expensive aspect of your divorce too. You will need to think carefully about your own needs and, most particularly, about the needs of any children. You should give first consideration to where you are going to live (especially if you have children) and only then start thinking about your investment.

To sell or not to sell?

• You’re both working and you have no children;
• The house is very valuable and the mortgage payments would be greatly reduced or even non-existent if it was sold and one or two smaller houses were bought;
• You’re both going to live with other people;
• There would be enough money after the sale to buy one or two houses (with or without mortgages).

We’re happy with one of us continuing to live in the house but want to get something out of it when the children are grown up
This might be the case where you have children who still need a home but feel that once they are grown up the house should be should be sold and the proceeds divided. You will need to think about what your respective circumstances might be at the time of sale to make sure your agreement is fair.

Some questions you might ask yourselves are:

• Will the proposed division enable both of us to purchase new homes?
• Will it cause a lot of inequality (for example, leaving one of you in a much smaller house than the other)?
• What are our respective earnings likely to be?

Unless you have a crystal ball, this is going to be guess work. Do try to be as realistic as possible, starting from where you are now.

We’re happy for one of us to have the house
You might consider this in some of the following circumstances:

• There is little or no equity in the house;
• You have other assets and can achieve a ‘fair’ division without touching the equity;
• You want to do this in return for not having to pay maintenance to your husband/wife and/or for them having any claims on your pension etc.

Any other questions?
This article is intended to give an outline of possibilities only. If you need any further information you can either contact our Family Law specialist or you can purchase our e-book, which gives very detailed information on the kind of settlements possible, as well as helpful hints for negotiating with your partner or their solicitor and worked out examples of a variety of different cases.

Important note about your will
When you were married, your old will became void. This does not happen on divorce or separation. If you never had a will anyway, maybe it is time that you did. We provide a range of template will documents to suit everyone, with loads of advice and over thirty easy-to-read free information articles about aspects of wills and tax.