property settlements

[new dad]

Hi all, I am asking on behalf of my Dad who is 71 years old and is experiencing the breakdown of a 21 year marriage.

My father is terminally ill and has not earned any money of significance in around 10 years, this is his second marriage and when he entered it he had not recovered completely financially from his first marriage of 16years so did not bring any property asets into the new relationship, however his wife had gained the family home from her previous divorce so she did bring a substantial property asset to the marriage.

Over the course of the twenty year marriage his wife has used her intial property to build an investment property portfolio to a point where she has more than 10 investment properties a various stages of mortgage repayments etc... two of which my dad hold a partial direct initial investment. but in reality my dad hasn't really contributed much to the building of the wealth.

pretty much he has been looked after by his wife financially for the last ten years or so.

My dad is a good guy and the relationship has turned toxic and he is considering leaving (finally), he is not interested in taking his wife to the cleaners or even pursuing a large share of the wealth he just wants to be ok and live out his last couple of years in peace and with dignity and preferably without a nasty court battle.

What i was thinking was that he may actually be entitled to more than he thinks and if this is the case maybe he could use this knowledge to leverage a small but reasonable settlement (he lives a humble lifestyle with humble tastes) during out of court negotiations.

My dad is kind of between a rock and a hard place because the assets in the marriage exclude him from a pension or any other centerlink benefit. He has a small credit card but has zero cash etc

I was just wondering any thoughts on this situation that I could pass on to my dad, I can hear the stress in his voice when we talk about it, I believe he fells trapped financially, and the emotional environment is definitely starting to affect his well being and self worth

Thanks for reading

 

[sammy01]

21 years? no kids? he is gonna be entitled to bloody close to half of the entire asset pool regardless of whose name is on the titles. Sorry to be blunt, but what is dad's life expectency atm? Does he have a will? He should.

 

[new dad]

Hi sammy01, thanks for the reply

yeah this was my initial thoughts aswell

we are not sure on life expectancy, he keeps out-living the predictions, the last one was that it was unlikely he would survive past last Christmas but here we are and his condition remains stable, not good but not in rapid decline either.

they both have wills but I am not sure of the content of them

 

[CSFLW]

Hi New Dad

The wills be irrelevant if they are joint proprietors on the title and if the wills were not drafted with intention to marry clause.

If she outlives him she keeps the property.

To protect your dad (and obviously your inheritance) there are simple steps that can be taken.

Send us an email and we can walk you through it [email protected]

 

[new dad]

Hi CSFLW thanks for responding

I am not sure what the "intention to marry clause" is would you mind explaining further if you have time, I know the wills are fairly recent (last 5 years I think) and were written at the time with no intention of separation or divorce.

Me and my sisters really aren't worried about inheritance, we are concerned about his quality of life, and how he might be able to live comfortably if he does decide to leave the relationship.

but you raise an interesting point about if she outlives him, which she will almost certainly do, I have thought previously that maybe this is why she is not leaving him, a strategy in a sense (but dad keeps defying the predictions), that being said she is not a bad person either, but she is smart with money and has educated herself in this regard

 

[CSFLW]

Given that the wills were drafted in the last 5 years they won't have the clause.

There seems to be some delicate issues you are dealing with, especially your father's health.

Before we can assist your father, your father will need to make a decision about the relationship — which I understand is hard for him to do.

If chooses, however, to end the relationship let us know.