Family home on divorce

In any financial proceedings on divorce, the interests of any children are the first concern. If the children live with you, this could be a deciding factor between whether the home is sold or not, and if it is, how the equity is divided.

There are no hard and fast rules. If you were to keep the home, your partner may get more of the other assets to balance things out, but there are no hard and fast rules. What happens to the family home will depend on your circumstances and what other assets are available.

The simple answer is yes. It may be that you and your partner want to own the house together until a certain event in the future under a Mesher Order, or you have investment properties together that you want to maintain.

You can continue to own property together but there are issues that you should consider first. For example, the court has a duty to consider a clean break between you and your partner on divorce; owning property together means that you may be financially tied to one another for the foreseeable future. It may also have tax implications.

Yes. Ensuring that both you, your ex and any children have somewhere suitable to live is a main priority. Often it will be more appropriate to rent whilst negotiating the overall financial settlement but, if buying another property in the interim is affordable and won't make it more difficult to achieve a fair split in the longer term, then it should be considered.

It's important to note that any significant expenditure needs to be disclosed during financial negotiations or court proceedings, and in most cases the cost of a new home is likely to be at a level that means it should be discussed and agreed upon before it's done rather than risking it being challenged after. 

The equity in your property is its value minus any loans charged against it and less any costs of sale. The equity in your family home or any other properties you both own is an asset to be taken into account when reaching a financial settlement. This means that it will be subject to the normal legal principles that the court uses in determining the financial settlement.

In financial proceedings on divorce, whose name the property is in generally does not matter. The starting point is that it is a joint matrimonial asset. There are some circumstances where a party may argue that they should have a greater share of the matrimonial home’s equity but this is rare and such an argument would need strong justification.