If she doesn't need it, can you just give her the 60k and make payments to her on the rest?
Well, she would have to agree to that. Or the judge would have to mandate that, I think.
But Im curious why you couldn't refinance. Lets assume your house is 500K (just to have a number. I don't think the value of the house really matters given the numbers you mentioned above^^^). At least in the US, they would let you borrow up to 80% of the value. So, you could apply for an equity loan up to 400K - what you still owe (in this example, 140K) making a grand total of 260K of credit available. Of course, youd have to pay back the bank and add some interest. And my guess is that you would need to refinance the house into your name first before you could take a loan out like this under just your name.
Another option would be to sell your home. Again, lets assume 500K. Youd each walk away with 180K. I would again think you could at least put a down payment on a pretty nice house with that chunk of money.
Either way, you are going to acquire some debt, sure. And of course, I have no idea what the housing condition/market is like in the UK. Im just going by US info.
But my point is that I wonder if there are other solutions. What recommendation does your lawyer have? How about the bank? Or a real estate agent?
