Question #323:My husband and I have been married 20+ yrs and have adult children. We both work and have roughly equivalent incomes. At my request he has agreed to move out of our marital home which we own together, and he now rents an apartment. As of this writing we have no formal separation agreement or divorce action. I claim he should continue to help pay the mortgage, as he continues to have rights to the equity that is accruing and he shares equally in the debt. He claims that since he vacated our marital home at my insistence, I am now solely responsible for the mortgage. Who’s right???

If your husband is signed on the mortgage as you suggest, he is liable to the bank to make the mortgage payments just as you are.
However, since you are occupying the home and he is paying rent, you should cover a larger portion of the mortgage payment.
The exact amount should be determined by examining all of the other financial and other considerations that are being proposed as a result of theSeparation.
If you are living in the NYC metro area, please call me to arrange a meeting for the 3 of us to discuss this matter in greater detail
And to work out all of the many other issues that must be agreed upon for the separation to work.

Leonard Weiner, Esq./Divorce Solutions
212-370-1660