My husband is in the. process of selling his new partners house

Thanks for the extra info. As you have not mentioned any other assets, I'm assuming that the house was the only asset.

From what you say the equity in the house when it was sold was £118,500 (£50,000 + £68,500). Your share was 42.19%, your husband's share was 57.81%.

Once a divorce petition has been filed at ciurt, either party can ask the court to decide how the matrimonial assets should be divided between them if the couple cannot agree. The ocurt starts from the position that the assets shoyld be divided equally & then looks at reasons what that should not happen eg if one party has a significantly lower income than the other, or if one party is to provide a home for dependent children. The court sees marriage as joint venture where the intention is that everything is shared, so there has to be good reason for not having an equal division.

In your case, you have a medium length marriage - the shorter the marriage, the more significant it is how the property was paid for. So - in favour of your husband getting a larger share is the fact that he paid the deposit of £60,000, which was 40% of the price - but that doesn't necessarily mean that he should get THAT much more oiut of the sale proceeds - because the key thing that the court has to take into account is not only fairness but also the needs of both parties on divorce. The fact that your income is significantly lower than your husband's is highly relevant AND you were giving him £400 per month! (I'm guessing that that was half the mortgage?)

On your salary, you would get a mortgage of 3 x 17,400 =£52,200, plus £50,000 - £102,200, which would be barely enough to buy a very small flat wherever you live.

If you had received half of the sale proceeds, you would have received £59,250, so that would allow you to buy a flat for £111,450, still barely enough. I'm assuming that your husband is already living with his new partner? as they are planning to buy somewhere together. If the case goes to court, that would also be relevant, as he will be in a household with 2 incomes whereas you have just your income - so that could increase your claim against him a bit as well (but the court is very reluctant to take into account the assets of a new partner). So I would think that your best claim against him would be for 55% of the sale proceeds - which would have been 55% x £118,500 = £65,175. You have already received £50,000 so your claim at best is probably for £15,175.

You need to file your divorce petition at court first, as the court has no power to make any orders in relation to finance & property associated with divorce until then.

However, going to court is time--consuming, stressful and very expensive (there is no legal aid for this type of application). The family court anyway now requires that the parties attempt mediation before it will consider an application to court. Here's where to find a family mediator near you:

http://www.familymediationcouncil.org.uk/find-local-mediator/

If you can reach agreement either between yourselves or via mediation or via solicitors' correspondence, that agreement can be made legally-binding by a solicitor preparing a draft consent order that you both sign which is then sent to court for the court to approve, without the need for a court hearing.

If there's no agreement, then you can go thriugh the full court process, which ends with a contested hearing, when the court decides what should happen.

I think it would be helpful for you to have some face-to-face legal advice from a specialist family law solicitor to discuss your options. Here's where to find one:

http://www.resolution.org.uk/findamember/

But it's really important that you file your divorce petition at court as soon as ever possible.

I hope this helps and I wish you the best of luck.

Thanks and best wishes...