Moving on

Hi, I am not divorced yet, the house has not sold yet, but my ex has moved out, which is a bonus. However, he has moved in with his girlfriend 100% of the time. At what point can I use this as evidence to show that he is set up financially. He has also just spent approx 300 - 400K on a boat, which he has used his girlfriend to fund somehow. I imagine that it wont be in his name, he is not that stupid, but overall, surely this can be seen as him having his life set up, and a court would award me with a greater % of the value of the house? I cant afford to buy, cant take out much of a mortgage as my salary is too low also.
Hope you have some advice. Many thanks

If his girlfriend buys a boat in her name then that is a not a matrimonial asset as between you and your husband. You can't claim anything from his girlfriend.

Before you even get to the territory of whether his girlfriend's financial circumstances are in any way relevant your financial circumstances and those of your husband have to be examined. Circumstances such as how long you have been married, how long you have been together, whether there are any dependent children and, if so, how old together with details of your respective capital assets, pensions and earning capacities are much more important.

Say, for instance, the total assets were about £1 million, there were no dependent children and you and your husband had a similar earning capacity. Since your needs and his could probably be met quite adequately on those facts it is likely that the financial circumstances of his girlfriend would be quite irrelevant. Your circumstances and those of your husband are in fact far and away the most important factors before looking at anything else.

thanks for this. It may be useful to give you more detail. He currently earns £40,000 and I £28000. As of Jan 1st he has decided to only work one day a week making his salary £20K. He lives with her now and has done for 3 months. He contributes to the family home 50% of his income as do I. But he is now saying that he is going to stop paying and will only pay half the mortgage which will be £300 a month. I can no-way afford to pay the bills on our home or indeed manage the house. We are still married, does he not have an obligation to pay? We have 2 children aged 14 and 17, both of who spend roughly 50% of time with us each. He has stopped with anything to help with the house and wont even pay for the children's bills.
We have yet to reach a financial resolution, but would I have a case for a large % of the equity of the house, given he lives with her and although he says he is going to buy somewhere, he isn't. My kids live there 50% of the time too. House will probably sell for £1,150000 and there is a mortgage of £60K on it. Pensions are pretty equal. He has offshore shares, that he refuses to give me half of. He is set up financially using her to carry him. He says he cant afford to support the family home because he now marina fees etc to pay and flights etc.
I dont want to waste sleep or increase my BP anymore if I am barking up the wrong tree.
Many thanks for your input and advice.

Bearing in mind that you have the benefit of living in the house and he does not there is no obvious reason why he should be paying the mortgage. That he pays half sounds reasonable under these circumstances. Similarly if the children share their time between you equally I assume he pays for them when they are with him so I am not quite sure what 'children's bills' you mean.

He does, of course, have to maintain his children and since he earns rather more than you it may well be that he should be paying you some child maintenance. You can work that out from the child support web site.

I think on these figures and given these circumstances the fact that he has a girl friend probably won't matter much. You have similar pensions, there seems to be quite a lot of equity and although you earn rather less than he does it is not a huge gap. If there is to be a division of the equity slightly more in your favour it will be because you have a slightly lower mortgage capacity which you will very likely need in order to rehouse yourself.