Thanks Zara - nice to hear there is life after divorce and glad to hear you are happy again.

Like you I do enjoy the thought of my ex and his gf in the future. She is immature - lived at home with mummy and daddy paying all the bills til moving in with my ex, neither of them earn much cash and she is used to partying hard and spending all her money on clothes/make up/hair/nails etc. He earns barely enough to cover their rent - plus as a self employed builder the recession is really affecting his work already. I always earned more than he did and he is used to me paying most of the bills, kids birthdays, holidays, car etc etc. Our settlement will keep them going for a couple of years but after that.......

Plus he had a vasectomy 16 years ago (his choice not mine) so no chance for her of kids.

Once I have my divorce, and my financial security in my new house, and my consent agreement signed and sealed - then i can sit back and watch them crash and burn! while laughing!

Sorry that sounds a wee tiny bit bitchy!

that made me laugh out loud

Vasectomy:­b­link­­: Well all you can do is sit back and watch, but keep things on a calm level so that you can get an amicable settlement, dont want to rock the boat.
Then you can live your life

Perhaps she was looking for a father figure, like my ex's was. That is how it started, blimey

Zara

Rugby fan,

When a judge assesses the 'fairness' of a Consent Order they allow for the deal to fall within a pretty wide range. They don't expect a strict adherence to a 50:50 split. They take into account that a Consent Order by its nature represents a joint agreement by both parties and as long as it isn't stupidly unfair then they would typically OK it.

Just to add that u do still each need to seek independent legal advice on the deal. Even if that is just a half hour of a sols time just to sense check the agreement.

Also even though the kids are 18, 20 if they still live at home part of the time and are in full-time education then they are still relevant and possibly even a justification for you to get 60% of equity by rights and even maintenance. So don't think that the offer is so overly generous - it may in fact be just what u would get anyway.

Finally (on this last point I am not certain of my facts) I doubt that the Consent Order could contain a condition that the property goes to the kids when you die. The court is simply splitting the marital property between the parties to the marriage - ie you and your husband. I don't think any conditions can be made about who you leave your share to.

In fact the one condition along those lines that is often included is to state that the ex-spouses cannot later make a claim against each others estate.

Thanks - that is all really useful stuff.

Both our kids still live at home (ie with me), both in uni and being entirely supported by me when at home (grant and loan doing the biz when they are at college). He is renting a flat with his gf and has no intention of providing them with anything (except the occasional fiver). I had assumed that as they were both over 18 they would count as independent adults and would make no difference to any settlement.

Will make sure he gets some legal advice - I am sure any lawyer would advise him to ask for more but as he is as stubborn as a mule I am equally sure he will insist on sticking to the deal he has offered. He makes very bad stupid decisions but at least this one is in my favour for a change!


Have I got this right? - as long as he has had legal advice (even if he totally ignores what they tell him) then he can't use lack of understanding of agreement as grounds to challenge consent order in future.

And I need to get advice from lawyer myself as to whether the court will consider our agreement to be 'fair'?