When does Spousal Maint end ?

My wife and i of 21 yrs are looking to split up. (separate or divorce ?). She is 44 and unemployed -- has been off sick for 12 months (hysterectomy / back problems). She says she is happy to have 50% of house value and 50% pension. She will move out and ill give her the money from a remortgage i take out. My son of 17 will stay with me (he is in fulltime education). If i take a mortgage out (say 1k /month ) will this come off any possible SM payments i will have to make?

If she co-habits can the SM stop immediately ?

I earn 48k p.a

Would the SM i have to pay, be more if she plays the I cant work card ? I think it reasonable to ask her to return to work and could earn 200/wk easily.

Does any SM figure need to be part of a Separation Agreement ?

Im Totally screwed up on what to do for the best ? Separate but live in the same house and pay her say £60/wk and i pay all bills and food and i do my own laundery /cooking /cleaning myself.

Any help would be appreciated

Cheers
Trouty
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To the best of my knowlege (but i'm sure there are folks here better qualified) you don't pay any thing for spouses, it the support of childern you pay for, if your son stays with you she would have to pay untill he leaves full time education (the CSA web site gives more detailed info)

Gazza

I'm afraid under certain circumstances you would have to pay SM but if you want a more detailed answer you'll need to post more information, such as value of house, mortgage, pensions, any debts etc.

Hopefully someone will then be able to give you more information to inform your decisions.

Assuming you are in England & Wales when there is a full disclosure of both parties finances, legal advice was sought and the agreement is fair a court will give weight to a separation agreement. Most people go for the certainty of divorce and a legally binding financial settlement. If you do pay SM it is in your interest to include it an agreement so it can be seen as fair, but before it can be established whether or not SM should be paid you need to consider the overall picture.

After a long marriage the objective is to leave both parties on a similar financial footing and, for example, because you earn more you can raise more mortgage finance so your wife would need more capital to leave her in the same position. That is balanced against the fact you will be housing your son (albeit for just another year) which is the priority.

Once the capital settlement is determined it's a question of working out your wife's income needs and how much shortfall she has to determine what a realistic amount of SM would be. Then that is balanced against your expenditure and the fact you will receive little in the way of child maintenance. When it has been established that spouse maintenance should be paid, because typically one party isn't self sufficient and the other party has the means to pay, the consideration for ending the term is when the recipient can be reasonably expected to become self sufficient.