Offer to Settle - Motion

[FB_]

I have a meeting with my lawyer tomorrow and would like to get an update to him today. I would like all of your input on a couple of things.

1. With what you know do these offers sound fair and reasonable.
2. Your thoughts on offering a Higher Child support amount vs. Set-off support and Mid SSGA spousal support even though entitlement has not been proved.
3. Anything else that should be included in any of these offers that I have not thought of.


So just to put it all back in context and on a very high level I am asking for the following at our Motion on May 8th. I do not yet have her response.

1. Interim Shared Custody or Sole as deemed in the best interest of the children
2. 50/50 access 2-2-3 or any other 50/50 schedule or Primary residence as deemed in the best interest of the kids
3. Set-off child support or Full table to me if deemed in the best interest of the children.
4. Sale of Mat home or Exclusive posession if deemed in the best interest of the children.
5. Payment of all joint debt from proceeds if Mat home sold.
6. Remaining proceeds to be held pending further agreement if Mat home sold.
7. S7 expenses

Offer 1 - Property only on final basis
1. I buy her out of the house
2. Pay all joint debt including mortgage by getting a new mortgage
3. split contents of house
4. Transfer both vehicle ownership's. I keep my car she keeps her van
5. Under this proposal the NFP shows very small or no equalization payment
6. Offer expires May 8th 1 minutes after start of motion.

Offer 2 - Settle issues for Motion
1. Interim Shared Custody
2. Interim Shared access 50/50 2-2-3
3. Both of us must reside in Peel.
4. OCL involvement
5. Child support. (Need some advice as per above question) currently worded as $500.00 when set-off would be $454.00.
6. Sec 7 expenses 60-40
7. I will maintain current benefits for children.
8. I will maintain life insurance policy
9. Sale of house
10. Payment of all joint debt on closing
11. net proceeds from house will be release and split equally.
12. All issues shall be adjourned to settlement conference and interim motion dismissed
13. No costs
14. Offer expires 1 minutes after motion on May 8th.

My last question is your thoughts and experience on point 11. Equally splitting net proceeds from the house. According to both her and my submitted NFP's she owes me ~40K as an equalization payment. I can get up to 26k from her pension. So basically I am risking 14k by releasing half the house funds. I wanted my lawyer to hold the money pending further agreement but he said that wouldn't look good as she would have no money to get herself settled in a new place. If she gets the money I highly doubt I will ever see it. Although it could be used as a lump sum spousal if she does prove entitlement.

Thanks for your opinions.

[Rioe]

1. Interim Shared Custody or Sole as deemed in the best interest of the children
2. 50/50 access 2-2-3 or any other 50/50 schedule or Primary residence as deemed in the best interest of the kids
3. Set-off child support or Full table to me if deemed in the best interest of the children.
4. Sale of Mat home or Exclusive posession if deemed in the best interest of the children.
5. Payment of all joint debt from proceeds if Mat home sold.
6. Remaining proceeds to be held pending further agreement if Mat home sold.
7. S7 expenses

What's all this crap? I thought you were going with the offers you listed below this? I wouldn't put in all this "deemed" stuff at all. It just makes it look like you are open to having someone else make a decision.

Offer 1 - Property only on final basis
1. I buy her out of the house
2. Pay all joint debt including mortgage by getting a new mortgage
3. split contents of house
4. Transfer both vehicle ownership's. I keep my car she keeps her van
5. Under this proposal the NFP shows very small or no equalization payment
6. Offer expires May 8th 1 minutes after start of motion.

Offer 2 - Settle issues for Motion
1. Interim Shared Custody
2. Interim Shared access 50/50 2-2-3
3. Both of us must reside in Peel.
4. OCL involvement
5. Child support. (Need some advice as per above question) currently worded as $500.00 when set-off would be $454.00.
6. Sec 7 expenses 60-40
7. I will maintain current benefits for children.
8. I will maintain life insurance policy
9. Sale of house
10. Payment of all joint debt on closing
11. net proceeds from house will be release and split equally.
12. All issues shall be adjourned to settlement conference and interim motion dismissed
13. No costs
14. Offer expires 1 minutes after motion on May 8th.

My last question is your thoughts and experience on point 11. Equally splitting net proceeds from the house. According to both her and my submitted NFP's she owes me ~40K as an equalization payment. I can get up to 26k from her pension. So basically I am risking 14k by releasing half the house funds. I wanted my lawyer to hold the money pending further agreement but he said that wouldn't look good as she would have no money to get herself settled in a new place. If she gets the money I highly doubt I will ever see it. Although it could be used as a lump sum spousal if she does prove entitlement.

Personally I would still go with an offer that uses straight offset for CS and makes no mention of spousal support. From what you've described, her entitlement to it seems unlikely, so even mentioning it at all makes it look like you agree that there is some entitlement.

As for 11, maybe it's worth 14k to get this agreement and avoid court. If it were me, I'd be willing to give more on equalization than I would on spousal support.

And for 3, I thought you were going to word it as the children must reside in Peel? Dictating where the parents live is much harder than agreeing that it's in the best interests of the children to remain in their familiar environment.

Here's how I would reword your offer:

Child Custody
1. Joint Custody.

Child Access
2. 50/50 access 2-2-3 to continue with established status quo
3. Equitable division of holidays
4. Children's residence to remain in Peel.

Child Support
5. Offset child support based on difference between table values for each parent's income, currently $454 per month paid from FB to Ex, to be adjusted annually in June
6. Section 7 expenses, agreed upon in advance, to be divided proportional to income, currently 60% by FB and 40% by Ex, to be adjusted annually in June
7. Children remain on FB benefits
8. Both parents maintain life insurance policies

Equalization
9. FB keeps the marital home ($Y asset value)
10. FB pays all joint debt ($~Y liability value)
11. contents of home divided by mutual agreement
12. FB keeps car ($A), Ex keeps van ($~A)
13. FB gets half of Ex pension ($26k)
14. No further equalization payment

This breaks it down into simple language any ex can understand. You probably want to spell out the amounts involved in each step of the equalization part, to make it clear that there really is no money remaining to be divided once you get to 14. And do you have a pension? Are there any RRSPs? You haven't mentioned where those fit in.

[FB_]

What's all this crap? I thought you were going with the offers you listed below this? I wouldn't put in all this "deemed" stuff at all. It just makes it look like you are open to having someone else make a decision.

This is the motion paperwork and was provided to give more context and to show everyone what I was trying to settle. So yes it will be having someone else make the decision.

Personally I would still go with an offer that uses straight offset for CS and makes no mention of spousal support. From what you've described, her entitlement to it seems unlikely, so even mentioning it at all makes it look like you agree that there is some entitlement.

Thanks for you input. I will have that discussion with him tomorrow. He seems to think there is a risk of entitlement during the motion and thus his recommendation.

As for 11, maybe it's worth 14k to get this agreement and avoid court. If it were me, I'd be willing to give more on equalization than I would on spousal support.

You make a very good point here.

And for 3, I thought you were going to word it as the children must reside in Peel? Dictating where the parents live is much harder than agreeing that it's in the best interests of the children to remain in their familiar environment.

I will have it reworded thanks.

Here's how I would reword your offer:

This breaks it down into simple language any ex can understand. You probably want to spell out the amounts involved in each step of the equalization part, to make it clear that there really is no money remaining to be divided once you get to 14. And do you have a pension? Are there any RRSPs? You haven't mentioned where those fit in.

RRSP's are very minimal and make almost no difference in the NFP. I do have a pension which is already included in the NFP as is hers but it is worth significantly less than hers almost by 1/3.

A little more history. I previously sent her 3 offers to settle. She was given the choice to accept any of them. All three offers included the following on a FINAL basis

Custody
1. Shared Custody

Acess
2. 50/50 access 2-2-3

Support
3. Set-off child support
4. S7 expenses split 60-40
5. No spousal support

The property is what split them into three offers.

Property
The first offer had me buying her out and her owing me $1257.00
The second offer had her buying me out and her owing me $79,000.00
The third offer had the house sold and her owing me $40,000.00

At the time she was not thinking of moving in with her new bf so she ignored all three offers. These offers were discussed at the DRO case conference and her lawyer said none of them were acceptable. My lawyer asked her for an offer and she told him that their response to my application was their offer and they were not going to budge. It included the following

1. Sole Custody
2. EOW access to me...
3. I pay table Child support to her (~1150/month)
4. I pay $750 / month in spousal support (Divorcemate calculated $0 - $154 - $517 / month with high end equal to 50/50 NDI) These numbers are with set-off child support of $454.00 not table @ $1150. So basically totally ridiculous.
5. An additional lump sum spousal support payment (amount not specified) Yup more support above and beyond point 4.
6. Any equalization payment would be held as security for child and spousal support. Plus she wants to hold all the money as security.
7. Exclusive possession of the home
8. An order requiring me to pay ALL carrying costs of the home while she has exclusive possession. So $1150 / month in CS $750 a month in spousal, lump sum spousal and I pay for all her expenses..... NICE DEAL.

Now that I have said all that I am trying to be very cooperative here and come to a resolution. I was not even going to send any more offers but my lawyer recommended that I send one for the motion. So this is where we are at. Previously she was not planning on moving in with her new bf so she wanted to keep the house and that is why she had not agreed on me buying her out. Now that she seems to have changed her mind I would still like to buy her out. This is why I was going to include a "Property" settlement only. I do not want it to include anything about custody/access as we clearly don't agree. So the first offer again is only a property settlement on a FINAL basis.

Now in regards to the Motion, that is what the second offer will include.

[FB_]

Had a very good meeting with my lawyer today. Gave him a little bit more of an update on some things I wouldn't normally email him about.

In the end we decided to go with a higher child support number instead of spousal for the offer as there is currently no spousal claim on the motion. We also decided that it would be hard to take it off the table if we were actually going to try and negotiate this at some point.

We spent about 20 minutes discussing the what if's regarding my case since we still have no idea what she is planning to do with her new bf etc.

I asked him what if they wait to the 4 day deadline to give us their info. He said considering it's a long motion they should get it to him a week before, but if they waited he would be on top of it immediately.

His concern now is that if she does want to move with the kids to Orangeville that the judge may not order the house sold until trial.

I asked him about when we would find out about the judge we get and he said probably not until we show up at court. I said that I had heard different things about judges. He confirmed my fear....Some of the judges can be pro mother and also pro spousal support.

I am once again impressed with my lawyer. He seems to have a clear grasp on my case and my expectations along with telling me what might happen in front of a judge.

[FB_]

I just wanted to comment on this post again and say that one of the main reasons my case eventually got negotiated instead of litigated was because of the many offers to settle I had sent. In all of them I was very consistent with exactly what I was asking for and they were all used as the basis for our final agreement. I think it is important to point out that the threat of litigation and the fact that she knew we were proceeding with it was also a very big factor in my case.