[Solved] Offer before FH

i would advise every dad to take the initiative and self-register with CMS.

agree completely with this

As mentioned before, you need to add the equity in the house to (for both of you) + savings + pension (transfer values) - debts. This forms the total pot. As mentioned before you both work an earn £50k each so your ex is able to get a mortgage and should be able to afford to buy a suitable property or taken on the existing mortgage for her and the children. The Judge will focus on this to ensure the children have a home to live in.

You just need to do the maths and work out if giving your ex all the equity is a fair split of the total pot (you keep your pension, savings and any debts plus not paying legal fees etc). Each case is different, and in my opinion a bit of a lottery, but its good you both have similar incomes, so spousal maintenance would be unlikely.

Good luck.

Thanks all,

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Ok so to answer some of the questions, I have no pension, no other assets aside from a second car valued at 22500 (as part of the FDR paperwork). She has a very small pension and no other assets, so it's all in the house. The house works out after sale etc (with me being on a 37% share, which we agreed when we bought the house as her folks put in a sizeable chunk) that I'd be passing up around £70k when you take into account my second car.

My concern is that I cannot afford the likely £10k court cost for the final hearing, I could find the money but then I'd at best come away from court with CMS and a chunk of equity for some future date, which doesn't help my debt (from the divorce) now.

The way the deal is worded is not CMS, it's me paying CMS at todays rate, then just increasing with CPI each year, no CMS involvement as I live outside the UK a lot. I sincerely hope there's no scope for her to come back at me in the future as then all will be lost! She's already trying to sneak in a nominal spousal maintenance order (£1 a month or whatever) to the deal which I'd politely declined.

That’s always the fear when making child maintenance a part of the divorce/financial settlement. After the court order has been in place for over 12 months, either parent can open a case with the CMS and as far as I am aware, at that point court agreements are overridden.

hi blindsided,

if you live outside the UK, then you dont have much to worry about from CMS. they will struggle big time, when dealing with international cases. They are pretty incompetent at dealing with UK with cases lol.

in my child hearings, the other side were going on about maintenance, so my barrister just went to that CMS calculator site, and told me to just start paying, otherwise it will look like i am trying to get out of it. ex side were dumb and greedy with mutual arrangement, so i just ended up signing up with CMS and sorting it out.