Seperation, advice please

LegacyUser

I'm gonna try and keep this as short as possible.........so bare with me! Left my husband about a yr and a half ago. He remained in the house, and was paying the mortgage up until Nov'08. Nothing has been paid since then. He is not paying maintenance. I was pregnant when I left him and had been bringing the baby for visits to the house but stopped in Oct'08 as I got pissed off with him living in the family home while I was in my parents house with a baby and a toddler.
I have a solicitor but we don't seem to be getting anywhere. He's ignoring all requests for maintenance, and the house is at a serious risk of being repossessed.
I would like any advice from anyone who maybe has been thru this or knows anything about the legal end of things. I'm getting legal aid as I'm not working.
For the record I know I would technically be in a better position had I stayed in the family home but the day I left, I left in fear. I knew there was no way that he would leave.
Hope this makes sense, I'm a bit frazzled thinking about it at this stage!!

Thanx in advance

LegacyUser

Unregistered wrote: »

I'm gonna try and keep this as short as possible.........so bare with me! Left my husband about a yr and a half ago. He remained in the house, and was paying the mortgage up until Nov'08. Nothing has been paid since then. He is not paying maintenance. I was pregnant when I left him and had been bringing the baby for visits to the house but stopped in Oct'08 as I got pissed off with him living in the family home while I was in my parents house with a baby and a toddler.
I have a solicitor but we don't seem to be getting anywhere. He's ignoring all requests for maintenance, and the house is at a serious risk of being repossessed.
I would like any advice from anyone who maybe has been thru this or knows anything about the legal end of things. I'm getting legal aid as I'm not working.
For the record I know I would technically be in a better position had I stayed in the family home but the day I left, I left in fear. I knew there was no way that he would leave.
Hope this makes sense, I'm a bit frazzled thinking about it at this stage!!

Thanx in advance

Hi OP

I've just gone through a seperation the past 9 months and my circumstances are very different to yours.

Firstly can I say that I understand you have had a dreadful time with the seperation and moving on.

Secondly I left the family home as I literally feared for my mental health if I stayed there.

Now as I said my circumstances are different from yours, so I don't have the same issues, but if I were you, and I could afford it/find alternatives, I'd write off the house and pursue your ex for maintenance for your child as your final objective.

In the interim, and having been in a violent relationship I completely understand that you left the house in fear (did the same myself when my mam literally rescued me).

To protect yourself, you need to either initiate mediation (if you can be in the same room) or legal proceedings to get an agreement in place as to who is responsible for paying the mortgage, as long as it is in joint names you are as liable as him.

If you can't do that in the short term, then as one of the holders of the mortgage, write to the bank underwriting the mortgage, explain the circumstances, and if you can, offer to pay your half of the mortgage until you come to an agreement with your ex.

Now as I said, my circumstances are very different to yours, but from what I've read on here, the local Circuit Court Clerks are very helpful in terms of maintenance etc, so it might be worth getting more assertive with your solicitor and engaging your local Clerk if it's at that stage.

Finally I'm very very sorry you are going through this, I know it's a dreadful dreadful time, please take care to take care of yourself.

Best wishes.

LegacyUser

Hi there, going unreg for this. Have been through the whole separation - not as bad as your situation by the sounds of things as there were no kids involved but messy nonetheless. First thing is, your solicitor is not doing his/her job if there is nothing happening. You sound as if you need to head down the road of judicial separation whereby everything is hammered out legally and your solicitor should be pushing for this. The family home is a crucial factor in this when there are kids involved. Keep a note of everything, every incident, detail that you can think of but get back onto your solicitor asap because they need to provide you with a clear direction i.e. after so many requests for maintenance they move on to the next level etc...If that doesn't work - change solicitors. It's stressful and horrible as a process but you will get through it and once you have things sorted legally believe me, you won't know yourself. But keep pushing the legal route. It sounds like mediation is irrelevant at this stage so the Judicial Separation is more what your after. Remember there are some (and only some) solicitors who love nothing more than a protracted legal battle as it means more fees - I know because I had one! I switched to one who went out of their way to work for me - if you can, try and get the second kind!
This may not be helpful at all and I'm sure you can't see any light at the end of the tunnel but you will get through it. I found rollercoaster.ie quite good in terms of advice - there are a few posters on the separation forum who really know their stuff - maybe try there too.
Best of luck to you.

Splendour

Unregistered wrote: »

I'm gonna try and keep this as short as possible.........so bare with me! Left my husband about a yr and a half ago. He remained in the house, and was paying the mortgage up until Nov'08. Nothing has been paid since then. He is not paying maintenance. I was pregnant when I left him and had been bringing the baby for visits to the house but stopped in Oct'08 as I got pissed off with him living in the family home while I was in my parents house with a baby and a toddler.
I have a solicitor but we don't seem to be getting anywhere. He's ignoring all requests for maintenance, and the house is at a serious risk of being repossessed.
I would like any advice from anyone who maybe has been thru this or knows anything about the legal end of things. I'm getting legal aid as I'm not working.
For the record I know I would technically be in a better position had I stayed in the family home but the day I left, I left in fear. I knew there was no way that he would leave.
Hope this makes sense, I'm a bit frazzled thinking about it at this stage!!

Thanx in advance

Have been in your position and know how difficult it is so you have my sympathies. I too left the family home but we did end up selling the house with both of us getting a cut out of it so I don't worry about you losing out on the house end of things. It might not be any harm to approach you bank/building society and explain the situation to them. Your case won't be the first time they've dealt with this.


A word of advice with regards to solicitors; don't wait around for them to take the lead 'cos they won't! You will have to tell your solicitor exactly what you want them to do, and keep at them! Don't worry that you are using a legal aid solicitor-they are there to be used just the same as any other solicitor.

Of course you also have to appreciate that it takes months to get a court hearing and in my experience even then you are very lucky if you get heard on the appointed day.
An 'interim' decision was made over two years ago with regards to custody of my son and I'm still waiting for the case to be heard. Irish courts are unbelievable.

In the midst of all this please look after yourself...

Blue_Wolf

can i ask you how long you were with him for?

LegacyUser

Blue_Wolf wrote: »

can i ask you how long you were with him for?

we were married 18 months when I left

LegacyUser

Sorry things didnt work out and am divorced myself so my sympathies here.

Im a guy and my situation was a bit protracted but enough of me.

You will get no brownie points from me for using child access as a negotiating tool and how dare you. So it is likely that you will get no sympathy from the courts either.I imagine your solicitor told you that access and maintenance are seperate issues.That they are linked seem to be of your making.Is this something you can fix.

Next the abrupt stopping of mortgage payments indicates that you have edited your post somewhat here and do not say what caused this.It seems to be that he cant either afford the house on his own or has reached the conclusion that even if he pays the bills it is only temporary accomadation so why bother.I wonder where he came up with that idea- something you said perhaps?There would seem to be a huge isssue here IMHO.

This is a huge fear for lots of men that they will become homeless and seperated men are treated as pariahs by the state for housing purposes. The recession being what it is it is unlikely the bank will just repossess whoever is on the deeds will be jointly resonsible for any debts.This is something that needs to be dealt with sensitively - a couple I know who seperated recently both know have their own places and the wife involved got a lovely place under the affordable housing scheme and he got his own place too.They didnt use solicitorsexcept forvthe final agreement but had a mediated settlement.They pooled their resourses via mediation and imagination and no-one lost out -well except the state and both work. They sold the old house which wasnt an option keeping given the recession affected his earnings.

The Legal Aid Solicitors are normally the best and I imagine they can do nothing to get you maintenance or that if the maintenance is likely to be less then you currently recieve on Lone Parents or if it would have no affect on your net financial position then they wont pursue a maintenance claim.

I also take it that no violence preceded you leaving etc so you were not in a position to have him barred from the house.That really is a very very good thing and as when allegations etc are made in court it is very difficult to pull back.People do and say things and especially solicitors write things that make life hugely messy for all concerned and once that happens and emotions are high and peoples feelings hurt its quite difficult to move back to being nice and trusting.

You have to concider the possibility OP that this is as good as it gets and that you might have to investigate thoroughly what your state benefit entitlements are as a resourse and especially looking at alternatives to living with your parents or in the family home be it renting or whatever.You may have to leave the idea of the house go and think of it as never having belonged to you but the bank.

There is a recession on there may be very little value in the family home and your husband too may be feeling the pinch.

A slice of personal observation here - there is no situation that cant be made worse by the presence of a family law solicitor.None. Mediation can be sucessful but these are not councellors and you have to be willing and be very inventive about claiming benefits and housing for the best possible outcome.It didnt happen that way for me BTW.

On access -you are living with your parents - my ex's mother was always a nasty piece of work and it made it impossible to get agreements in place as she had a particular agenda and her availability for childcare meant we didnt ever have proper access arrangements ever.My father was similar and was in contact with my ex's family etc. If you have people in your life that thru this are advising you to escalate matters in a nasty way dont listen to them.

LegacyUser

OP, I understand you're in a terrible situation. But I can't believe you would deny your children access to their father because you were p1ssed off that he was living in the house (which you chose to leave). Now I understand you were in fear, but every child deserves access to each parent as much as is possible. So you now have two kids who haven't seen their dad since October because you're a bit pissed off? Unbelievable.

Given you withdrew access to his children in October, I'm not surprised he stopped paying the mortgage in November.

It's a terrible situation for everyone to be in, but you have no right to make your children suffer.

LegacyUser

Guys - we don't know the full story - OP says she stopped bringing baby to the house - has she tried to make other arrangements? Has he asked for visitation? Given that she says she left the house in fear it's hardly surprising she's not keen on going back. Of course it's wrong to use children in these kind of situations but we don't know that that's what's happening.
OP - the main issue here is getting your life back on track and putting in place arrangements (legally) to ensure that you can do this. So push your solicitor to get things started. I'm talking about access/visitation agreements as well as the issue of the house. It takes a long time for the legal process to reach a conclusion but the sooner you get it started the better - you're in limbo at the moment which isn't good for you or your baby.
Ring your solicitor asap and make them work for you.

CDfm

Unregistered wrote: »

Guys - we don't know the full story - OP says she stopped bringing baby to the house - has she tried to make other arrangements?

Joint custody and guardianship. She had arrangements made and she suddenly stopped them. Her OH masy not be aware of his legal rights.

Has he asked for visitation?

Should he have to - she can restorte access and say she understands it made him upset and promise not to do that again. OP you need to create some goodwill.

Given that she says she left the house in fear it's hardly surprising she's not keen on going back. Of course it's wrong to use children in these kind of situations but we don't know that that's what's happening.

Well whats wrong with arranging collection and delivery from a neural venue for now -say a frien or neighbours house,

OP - the main issue here is getting your life back on track and putting in place arrangements (legally) to ensure that you can do this. So push your solicitor to get things started

.

the house issue is a court and bank issue

lI'm talking about access/visitation agreements as well as the issue of the house.

If the bank repossesses it there is no house.

It takes a long time for the legal process to reach a conclusion but the sooner you get it started the better - you're in limbo at the moment which isn't good for you or your baby.

No limbo here I am afraid she left the house and denied access to the father.

What legal limbo is she in ?

Explain what benefits there are by going the legal route financial or other?

Ring your solicitor asap and make them work for you.

Find a decent mediator first as solicitors are attrocious.

LegacyUser

OP here. To reply to a few of your queries, OH is aware of his legal rights, or at least should be, he has a solicitor. He has not asked for access.
I will be creating no goodwill with a toerag that screamed and yelled and roared at me (a pregnant me I might add) in front of my toddler, and made her so upset that everytime she hears a raised voice she gets so upset. And he, while in couple counselling said he would do it again, knowing the effect it had on the toddler.
Regarding mediation, I suggested it, he refused it, saying he would not have someone tell him what he should do.

Thanks for the advice, and the comments

CDfm

Hi OP

I have no doubt this happened -but people do say stuff they don't mean all the time when they are under pressure. You hear mothers telling children in shops all the time that they will kill them - but you dont see confectionary isles in Dunnes closed investigating the latest round of child killings.

Children do cower when the hear adults shouting so its not all down to him - he might say you were wrecking his head and not facing up to things.

What you posted speaks loads about your situatiion and attitude but mediation doesnt work if both parties aren't willing to make it work.You have to work on a realistic achieveable outcome. I suggested you making the move on access and you wont do that- you may have used that as weapon and wont give it up.

I dont mean to be unkind but really courts are only there as a last resort when all other methods have failed.The judge doesnt care about you or him and doesnt want to hear about it. All the judge sees is another two people with kids whose marriage has broken down and whose house is being repossessed by the bank.Join the queue.

Your lawyers have told you what they can do and what they can't legally.There is not a lot they can do as once the process starts or has started as you are into judicial seperation and divorce procedures and there is little point really in going to court as its not going to change the outcome.

(It would really surprise me if your lawyers and his havent spoken totally off the record and know a lot more than they can tell you and the outcome bar the procedure and shouting may already be decided-your hubby may not be working or whatever and the house possesion may be inevitable)

I would look at it differently to you having been thru it. You have to look at the stuff under your control and that might be applying for housing to the local authority etc. There is a recession on and the queues will get longer and that and the lone parents allowance might be the only option other than living with your parents.

You seem to be coming out with a seperation version of "say it ain't so"- but it is.It isn't easy and that might be as good as it gets.

Best of luck to you all.