Equitable accounting

Since separating 2 years ago, I've payed the mortgage, all bills and all of my wife's personal expenses in full every month as my stbx completely refused to work.

This is a significant amount of money. I have no issue with paying the mortgage and all bills but I have also funded her social life, including her dates with boyfriends and nights out with friends. This seem morally wrong and I think it would be much fairer to only pay the mortgage and household bills - any personal expenses should be funded by herself.

There are several examples of case law where equitable accounting principles have been applied to mortgage payments. What this means in practice is that where one person has continued to pay all household costs, the spouse's unpaid contribution is then deducted from the divorce settlement.

We've been separated for 2 years and I would like to request that my stbx's unpaid contribution is deducted from the divorce settlement. Am I within my rights to request this? The figure is not insignificant (around £20K).

What is a court's view likely to be? I understand that equitable accounting is open to interpretation and could be ignored by a court.

'Equitable accounting' has absolutely nothing to do with divorce law. The sooner you get that notion out of your head the better.

>>I would like to request that my stbx's unpaid contribution is deducted from the divorce settlement. Am I within my rights to request this? <<

You can request it but you have no right to it whatever. If the marriage is over you should have sought a divorce two years ago and settled all the financial issues formally and finally within the context of that divorce. You cannot apply some sort of rule after the event which has never been agreed and whereby you are effectively reimbursed.

How capital is divided upon divorce will basically depend upon your respective needs and resources rather than upon the application of the sort of principle you seek to apply.

Thanks for the detailed response.

I understand that there is not any legal requirement to apply these principles.

From my perspective, it seems unfair that I have supported her social and love life financially after being separated. I believe the only way to address this now is to ensure the finances are split fairly going forwards as part of our divorce.

I continued funding her during the 2 year separation as I wanted to be as fair as possible and to enable her to support herself financially. Unfortunately, she had no interest in financially supporting herself so this just maintained the status quo for 2 years.

You will get no credit for having supported her for that last two years. If anything doing that has established a dependency upon you which she will no doubt expect to continue or to be compensated for. There is absolutely no question of you being retrospectively compensated in the absence of a provable agreement that that was what you both intended.