The carve up

My soon to be ex wife moved out 16 months ago and hasnt paid a penny (I live at home with my three kids, 25, 18 and 16).
We have a house worth £250k and mortgage worth £113k (£137k equity). The house is going to be sold and I am going to move into a 3-bed rented with my two youngest kids (my eldest is flying the nest which was on the cards anyway).
I am having to enter a DMP due to my self employed business going down the pan and my heart not being in it since she left (am just securing an employed job - for some stability and a wage - horray!)
PayPlan are saying that when the house is sold, I will be able to make a full and final settlement of about £20k (I owe more than double this so £20k sounds great). Am making token payments till house is sold - goes on the market this Friday.
I am waiting for my ex to agree the terms of a spreadsheet I gave her which splits the equity (after the £20k is taken away). This will keep the divorce costs cheaper - gonna press the button on here next week - finally...phew! I have also calculated and taken into consideration her lack of 50% mortgage contribution over the last 16 months, and 10% of her salary as maintenance payments she never made (which I think is fair as she has paid absolutely nothing - and we brought this house on two saleries - not just mine). It currently ends up as an approx 47% / 53% split in my favour. I dont have a pension but she does. It looks like however I may be able to have rights to a percentage of that as well reading some articles on here.
My youngest is staying at home with me until she leaves college or uni (poss five years time).
Q. I have read I can negotiate even further by taking into consideration maintenance payments for the next five years?
Does all this sound like I am on the right track to becoming debt free, stress free and wife free?

Mr M

Sorry you haven't received a response sooner.

Your stx should be paying maintenance for children 18 and under who are in full time education. If she is not and will not then you may need to involve the CSA. For one child, the figure is currently 15% of net income and for two it is 20%. If you have not already, you should claim tax credits as a single parent. AFAIK maintenance for over 18s at uni is a matter for voluntary payments or a court order.

If she is not living in the property, she is presumably paying to rent elsewhere. The fact that she is not paying half of the mortgage would not be an issue: you are seen as paying "rent" for her share of the property. You may have some joy in deducting repayments of equity you have made but the interest payments are unlikely to be counted.

I am not sure how the business related debt would be counted - usually marital debts are set against the assets of the marriage.

Do you know the CETV of her pension? This is an important figure. You may well be able to claim a share of it or alternatively you could agree to offset it against a larger share of the equity. If you are not going to buy again, a pension share may be a better option depending on the scheme.

Hadenoughnow

Hi. Thanks for the reply. Useful information. What a mess bit what you say does make sense.