My legal fees amounted to around £400,000 - I am now left with a debt of around £100,000…

[For the relevant law on the issue of maintenance and finances see the following statute: Matrimonial Causes Act 1973: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1973/pdf/ukpga_19730018_en.pdf]. Although I am a lawyer, I am only expressing an opinion in this article and am not stating that the legal position is correct as each case turns on its own facts…..

June 2006: 

Well, the Judgment in the Ancillary relief proceedings has been given after 14 months of finance proceedings involving around 6 separate hearings and a 4 day trial in the High Court. Further cross examination by yet another hostile and unnecessarily aggressive barrister, further humiliation and upset for me. Finally, the Judge awarded me 2/3 of the capital of the house, but only a small percentage of my husband’s income ie £35k out of my husband’s £142k. The Judge  accepted that, due to my Bipolar, it will be harder for me to get a well paid job so he gave me a higher proportion of the capital to try and ensure that I will be able to provide me and the kids with a house out of the balance of the capital of the sale of the house.

Great. In theory.  BUT He went on to say that my exhusband has total control over the sale of the house.

Guess what my exhusband does?

You’ve guessed it! He has agreed a sale on it which leaves me with a huge debt and no way to pay it. Although I appreciate that there is a credit crunch and the housing market is unstable, he has agreed an offer which represents a fall of 35% of the original sale value. Although this price means that he will also be left in debt, he has the lion’s share of his income with which to meet his debt repayments.

My maintenance doesn’t cover even half of the debt repayments on that kind of debt. I have no steady income and little hope at the moment of establishing one. I cannot buy a home for my children nor even rent one, despite the fact that I have Shared Residency  (definition in the Children’s Act ) and therefore a responsibility to provide them with a home. We live out of my brother’s spare bedroom with 3 of us sharing a bed whilst the other one sleeps on a single bed in the same room….I have now been living like this for 18 monts while he has remained in our 7 bedroomed house…..

He claims he cannot afford to give me more maintenance to fund a rental home for me and the children.

I have Shared Residency of the children. This means that the children have their home with me AND my husband. Even though he has been given the care of them for most of the term time week, the law states that the children need to be housed with BOTH of us.

Yet the Judge’s decision leaves my husband with £190,000k net per annum with which to house himself, his nanny and for his and the children’s living expenses. I am left with £35, 000 with which to house myself and the children, to meet the debt repayments of £100,000 and to provide my children with clothes, food and sundries. After paying my debt repayments, I am left with around £500 a month to meet their and my needs.

Now I appreciate that many people would say that they would be incredibly grateful for £500 a month and part of me feels ashamed at complaining about it; I know that a great number of people have far less than that to live on and many receive nothing at all from their ex spouse.

But that’s not the point: the point is the vast disparity between our respective levels of living from here on in. It is the inequality that I am upset by and feel that the whole result has been hugely unfair in what is supposed to be a fair system. 

Under the Matrimonial Homes Act 1973, section 25 states that the Court has to take the following issues into account when deciding how to distribute the proceeds of the family house together with making financial provisiong for both the children and the spouses. The considerations are as follows:

(a) the income, earning capacity, property and other financial resources which each of the parties to the marriage has or is likely to have in the forseeable future;

(b) the financial needs, obligations and responsibilities which each of the parties to the marriage has or is likely to have in the forseeable future;

(c) the standard of living enjoyed by the family before the breakdown of the marriage;

(d) the age of each party to the marriage and the duration of the marriage;

(e) any physical or mental disability of either of the parties to the marriage;

(f) the contributions made by each of the parties to the welfare of the family, including any contribution made by looking after the home or caring for the family;

(g) the value to either of the parties to the marriage of any benefit (for example, a pension) which, by reason of the dissolution or annulment of the marriage that party will lose the chance of acquiring.

The court has to exercise those powers to place the parties, so far as it is practicable, in the financial position in which they would have been if the marriage had not broken down and each had properly discharge his/her financial obligations and responsibilities.

I do not believe that the distribution of the income to this marriage was anywhere near being sufficient to meet many of the criteria set out in the above Act.

Given that I am now in such an untenable position, I am having to now go back to Court to seek a variation of the court order made so that the Judge can re-consider the maintenance and capital position.

My lawyers are so horrified at the debt position that I am left in, together with my homelessness, that they are going to act for me for nothing as, in their words what has happened to me “ just doesn’t feel right”.

The fact is that the result of this whole case “just doesn’t feel right” and my children and I have suffered and are continuing to suffer hugely.

We are now in a position where my children do not have a home with me despite the fact that there is a Shared Residency Order in place.

I’m intending to appeal this decision so watch this space….