am I being reasonable?

I was married 25 yrs and spent most of them homeschooling our children and doing volunteer work. Husband has a good final salary pension and the house is worth 185000 with £30000 left on the mortgage. He left me for another woman but is not living with her. I have started to work on a low income and my husband is self employed. His hourly rate is three times more than mine but he has put in accounts that show an income roughly the same as mine. He is also going through an interview process for a different more stable and higher paying job. I have offered to give him £40,000 (all I can afford on a remortgage) and take less of his pension.I would also be willing to put a charge on the house so he would get a portion if I sold in the future. He is refusing this and is insisting on selling the house with a 50/50 split. We are attending mediation at the moment but I would just like to know if the offer I have made is reasonable. Also could I suspend mediation until the outcome of his new job application is known?

Thanks.

You do not say how old the children are or whether any or all of them are still dependent.

Also, ability to raise a mortgage does not depend upon hourly rates but upon income and you give no indication of your respective incomes.

Whether your offer is reasonable depends upon what your respective housing needs are, the cost of that housing and how it would be paid for. The first two points are relevant to this.

I earn 11000 a year, i am able to pay off an interest only part of the mortgage of 18000 using a loan from family. A mortgage advisor told me I could borrow 33000 so I am hoping to raise more by remortgaging with my daughter who is 21, she has been working full time since July when she finished uni. I will only borrow what I can afford to repay myself without involving her - she does pay board. I also have a son who is 23 and living abroad.

With a 50/50 split and the mortgage I would be very limited to the house I could buy. My point is that if my husbands gets this new job he will be in a much better position.

Thanks

OK, well, the children are adult so basically your housing needs and those of your husband are the same. I don't think you will be able to keep the house. There is no obvious reason for keeping it. The only justification for keeping in these circumstances it would have been in the event that it was still needed as the home for dependent children but that is not the case.

Please note that if you were to keep the house as you propose that would have significant disadvantages from your husband's point of view. (1) There is every likelihood that the mortgage lender would refuse to release him from the mortgage which would mean that he would be unable to raise a mortgage of his own. (2) Assuming he got a charge on the property as you are proposing you would basically be using your husband's share of the property, he would be getting nothing from it and he might have to wait until you died before he got his share.

For these reasons I think it is very likely that a court would order the property to be sold. If it was sold then there would be no good reason not to divide the net proceeds equally if your income and that of your husband was the same. However, if he has historically earned much more than you and/or he gets a job which provides a much higher income than you then the net equity would be split unequally in your favour because he would have a higher mortgage capacity.

So far as I can see the family loan and/or help from your daughter could be applied as easily to any new property you bought as to the existing one.

Because of the length of the marriage you will also be entitled to a pension share which equalises the benefits from your respective pensions. The pension issue is a separate one from whether the house should be sold and how the net equity should be divided.