Chance of selling home rather than mesher order

Good afternoon all.

My wife has declared her intentions for divorce proceedings.

What are my chances of receiving equity from the maritial home other than accepting mesher Order. And estimated split if possible.

AGES: Husband 35 Wife 30
CHILDREN: one 3 years of age
MARRIED: 4 years
COHABITATION prior to marriage; 2 years

INCOME; Husband 40k wife 35k
Savings: equal in value £10k each
Pensions: equal in value £20k each
Assets: equal in value 5k each

Marital home 3 bedroom 180k of equity
Additional 1 bedroom Home brought into marriage solely owned by husband: 100k of equity

On the face of it your wife only needs a two bedroom property and she has a significant mortgage capacity. There is no obvious reason why the property should not be sold.

Thanks for the quick response terry,

Based on the above earnings per annum is spousal maintainence to be likely? And in your opinion how do you think the 1 bedroom property be viewed?

The facts of that are owned by myself prior to marriage and cohabitation in marital home (we have never lived together at this property) in fact I’m a landlord on that property with the same tenant in situ before cobhabitation/marriage. All bills for the property and rental income went into my personal bank account that i also pay the mortgage from.

IF the property has always been in your sole name and your wife has not been involved with the property in any way - such as paying anything for it, receiving anything from it, living in it etc - then in principle the property is not matrimonial property and can be excluded. BUT a court will take non matrimonial property into account if it is necessary in order to provide properly for the reasonable needs of the other spouse or if in some way there has been 'co-mingling' of that property.

Also, it is probably fair to say that although in theory the law is equal as between husband and wife in practice a husband will usually find it more difficult to make out a case of non matrimonial property than a wife.

As to spousal maintenance I would say that your wife is entitled to nominal (ie £1 per annum) maintenance until the child ceases to become dependent. This is to cover the situation that might arise if, say, your wife lost her job while the child was dependent. It is possible there could be a clean break BUT unless your wife agrees to that voluntarily you can be expected to pay for that clean break with more capital because your wife would be giving up something which is potentially of value to her.