There was a line in his lengthy email from Sunday that caught my eye " I feel we need to move forward with some sort of separation/divorce agreement. However, I say separation agreement because I am a little nervous about the CGT implications if you stay in the house 2+ years following a formal divorce " and made me dig a little further (google). For those across the pond, CGT stands for Capital Gains Tax and it is a tax (circa 20%) paid on the increase in the value of a property (purchase price vs sale price) when you sell that home and the home is not your primary residence. It normally applies to buy to buy to let properties but can also apply where you have two residences (e.g for work purposes). The rules are fairly cut and dry, if you sell a property and it is not your primary residences for 18 months prior to the sale, then the individual who has not lived in the house is liable for their share of the property value increase.
There is a change coming into effect in March which reduces the 18 months to 9 months, but he has been living away for over 2 years come March, so he is impacted under the old and new regime.
My laymans interpretation of this is:
* CGT does not care the status of a couples relationship. What is relevant is the length before sale that the property ceased to be the primary residence. * Primary residence is fairly loosely defined, but a good measure is which property you slept in most over the period (in his case less than 20 days over 2 years).
We are talking about approx £40,000 so I can appreciate why he is nervous. However, I fail to see how the status of our relationship impacts this. There are only three ways to get him out of this: 1) we play around with the dates he left (this will have implications on the requirement for 2 years separated in order to get a no fault divorce 2) he moves back in for a period and we reset the clock 3) we agree to share the liability (i.e. he pays the CGT and I gift him £20,000)
Don't know the right answer. All I do know is I am not willing to share the cost, and moving back in would be untenable for both of us. If we flex the dates (whilst it falls into the do no harm) a part of me feels that would be letting him off easy (take no sh!t).
**** Anyway, he has been unusually nice the last couple of days. No house talks at all. He is on standby this week which means our childcare schedule says "flexible". He tells me if he can pick up the kids, and then I shift the nanny around / come home early to accommodate. And before anyone thinks I am trying to nice him back, I am not. It doesn't effect me too much, the kids get to see their dad and he stays in a good mood.
He picked them up from school yesterday (nanny was not scheduled anyway so it saved me having to leave work early) and I msged him to say I would be back between 7 and 7:30 and to leave if he had to be somewhere (D13 is old enough to watch D10 for an hour or two). He was still there when I got in he had just finished giving D10 a bath. I said "Oh, I thought you'd be gone. You didn't need to hang around. But thanks for picking them up" then went into my room (my room !!!) to change. When I came out he was gone. I looked around and he had taken the washing out, washed the dogs bedding, put away the breakfast dishes which were drying on the side and washed up and put away the dinner dishes (from him and the girls). The girls had both done their homework and when I looked outside he had cut back some of the trees. I am not sure what the deal is but am guessing this has something to do with him wanting to butter me up for the CGT talk.
***** D13 has been really happy since Christmas. I was worried it would return to normal once she was back at school (school seems to be an emotional trigger for her) but she has been generally chatty and engaging. There is the odd raised voice but nothing that doesn't subside fairly quickly. Mornings have been so much easier. She gets up when I call out to her and by the time I finish getting ready, she is sitting in the kitchen, dressed for her day, school bag next to her playing on her phone. I am hopeful this isn't a glitch. I suspect she sees her dad and I getting on (we are more chatty with one another and even have conversations not about the kids - things in the news mainly) and this has lightened her mood.
*******
Solicitor tomorrow then sending email (with Yail and Alison's amendments) in the afternoon.
