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My wife and I are in the process of separating. Without going into too much detail, the reason is she cheated on me and we have resulting trust issues which will never be resolved.
We have 2 children together.
I am moving out and leaving her with pretty much all possessions and taking with me our joint debt. Legally the debt is in my name, but it was all spent on us (wedding, possessions, etc). I can cover the debt repayments just about.
She has agreed that she doesn't want any child maintenance until the debt is cleared and we both agree the two are offsetting each other at the moment. Once the debt is gone, we agree I should pay the maintenance into savings accounts for Uni funds for the kids when older. She will not need the money to live on as her benefits will see her very well.
How do we go about getting this all documented in a legally binding way? I don't want any come back on this at a later date, and she is cooperative in doing things this way (the Uni funds was her idea).
We are on good talking terms at the moment, so it is a good time to sort it. Can we use a template and just get a witness to sign it, or does it HAVE to be done via a solicitor?
Hi Redbridge,
welcome to the site.
You seem to be very level headed and it's good to hear that a couple can manage to work things out on thier own without having to have legal battles.
I think the best bet would be to write out the exact agreement between you and then get a solicitor to write it up and ensure it is legally binding.
As far as I know that's the best way to do it, I'm sure that you could write it up your self and have it witnessed but as you say you don't want any come back later on.
Hi
I agree with Darren that it is best that it's sorted out amicably, however I would be very cautious before you commit anything to paper. I am not 100% sure of my facts here, so it is definitely worth confirming, but I believe that in a divorce agreement, if an arrangement is made for maintenance, the parent with care can ask the CSA to take on the case after a year so anything agreed to would be irrelevant - I think debts accrued during the marriage can be deducted from takehome pay before the calculation, but that's a lot less than deducting it from maintenance.
Since you are trying to work this out amicably, I would suggest that you both see a solicitor together to get general advice - normally a solicitor will work for one side, but I think they can work for both sides if consent is given - the idea would be for the solicitor to say what the position is, and what could happen if it stopped being amicable, so that you both can work out an agreement now to stop it going bad. I would expect that you'd only be talking about having a couple of hours or so for consultations and maybe a bit more time for the agreement, but it would, in my opinion, be money well spent for both of you.
Hi, I'm Sarah the Child Maintenance Options consultant & thought it'd be useful if I commented here.
It's good to hear that you and your wife are able to discuss child maintenance amicably together. The only way to make an agreement legally binding is to do so via a consent order, which is an official ruling made by a court. To do this you will incur legal costs and court fees, and like the Dadtalk moderator said, either party could apply for the CSA to take over the child maintenance after it's been in force for 12 months. The courts usually follow the CSA formula to calculate an amount, which is 20% of your net weekly income for 2 children.
I know you mention trust issues but if you did want to try making a family-based arrangement together or wanted more details about this option, the Child Maintenance Options service can help. There are a host of useful forms and tools (including an online child maintenance calculator) available at www.cmoptions.org website. Or, if you'd prefer a confidential chat you could call the Child Maintenance Options team on
0800 988 0988 (free from a landline).
I've also added a few other contacts below that you might find useful:
1) www.citizenadvice.org.uk for free advice on legal & many other matters
2) www.nfm.org.uk. or tel: 0139 227 1610 is the National Family Mediation service who can help with the process of separation
I hope this has helped you.
Sarah
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