Advice for friend in negotiating separation / divorce

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onekeano

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A friend is going through a rough time. In a long term relationship and had 3 kids and her partner pushed to get married and so they did. He became pretty successful in his job and after a while they decided she would give up hers to looks after the kids so all was good.

Then an opportunity came up for an overseas assignment and they all headed off. A year or two later he got "distracted" and so she headed home with the kids to the family home. Things are progressing towards separation / divorce and she now has a solicitor on the case but obviously him being overseas complicates things.

To me the big issues are the family home and pension pots (for both of them). I'm wondering what the process for negotiation is, for example.
  • I presume she gets to live in the family home until the kids finish college (10 years from now)?
  • Is she entitled to 50% of his pension pot (and he entitled to 50% of her)?
  • If the equity on the house is say 200k and she were entitled to say 250k from his pension pot could she buy him out by offsetting 100k from his pension against his equity in the house?
  • Would she (and the kids) be entitled to be beneficiaries for any insurance policies he has (including Death in Service from his pension?
She works part time in a temporary job and earns about 20% of what he would earn. Are there are other items apart from the above that she needs to look out for? I'm thinking that it's going to be difficult to get a full picture of his financial health (stock options, overseas bank accounts, share portfolios etc etc).

Any advice would be much appreciated as this is a life changing situation for herself and her kids.

Roy
 
Two things:

a. Is he co-operating?
b. What ages are they?

She should not make any assumptions about the family home or the pensions. And, if it looks like maintenance may become an issue, she should start thinking about upskilling and finding better paid employment.

She should also be talking to her own solicitor about likely outcomes.



mf
 
Hi mf1,

At present he is co-operating in that he is paying maintenance - seems to be somewhat strained (which I suppose is to be expected) and this could increase as there is a 3rd party on his side at his stage. They are both aged late 40's.

While she engaged a solicitor several months ago it seems to have only gotten to the stage where a letter has gone to his solicitor asking what they plan to do in relation to her situation / marriage dissolution. She hasn't heard anything back as yet and obviously this is a stressful situation.

I take your point about upskilling and finding better paid employment but against a background whereby a) she gave up her career to effectively raise kids and b) now she's curtailed to working limited hours because her kids are still young that puts her at a significant disadvantage - particularly when compared to the husband.

Hence the questions in my original post,

Roy
 
Without knowing the facts and seeing the figures, it is hard to advise.

Best guesstimate.

She probably needs to start a process where she identifies and values all the assets ( that is anything owned jointly by them or singly by each other), all the liabilities, again joint or single, all the income and all the outgoings.

She needs to decide ( on advice) what she wants ( probably everything) and then needs to step back to what she needs - something like half the assets ( in whatever shape that best leaves her best provided for) and maintenance, certainly for the kids and, less likely, full whack for her. Unless there is very substantial wealth, maintenance for her is likely to
be short term.

It is best to try and negotiate settlement but that is not always possible as one ( or, more usually, both) get thick with each other.

After that , it may need proceedings but the Court here can only deal with Irish assets.

mf
 
Thank you MF - this is very helpful and I'll pass it on to her. I know the overseas thing complicates the issue, when I discussed the issue with her recently all I could offer were anecdotes of some male friends of mine who had been down this road and (from a male perspective) all seemed to have been harshly treated in terms of the outcome - losing 50% of pension, savings and property and generally ending up in rental accommodation with a bleak future.

Roy
 
harshly treated
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The only ones who are 'harshly treated', and they've done nothing to deserve it, are the children! The adults in this situation chose this course, regardless of their reasons, the children didn't.

losing 50% of pension, savings and property
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Had they stayed married, the assets would have been shared 50/50 anyway. The difference now is that the primary carer's allocation has also to be shared with the children of the marriage. So in the event of a 50/50 split, the non-resident parent's portion is actually larger than the resident parent's.

and generally ending up in rental accommodation
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depending on age/resources/ money, every case is different.

with a bleak future.
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There's no doubt that the whole process is awful for everyone concerned, but there's always a future, it's up to you to make it.
 
They should try to go down the collaborative law route, which will keep it out of the courts and the costs down. They will, of course, have to be up front and honest, if they want it to work.
 
Collaborative law route...I wonder would you mind expanding a bit on this.
Myself and wife have just grown apart over the years. Haven't a lot of money
.have mortgage free house one child. 2 years from 18. We will agree everything very amicable
.so this sounds interesting...even with all agreed ..from reading here ..once you walk in the door of the solicitor ..it seems very very expensive...we want jointly to avoid this ..we understand rights must be explained to each ..etc etc ...can you get a judicial separation agreed

( Rights explained to each party etc)
And rubber stamped as such with legal standing ...so.we can get on with our life without undue delay....thanks
 
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