Selling the house after a split

pawpurrs

If the house has no equity, then he gets nothing. You couldnt rip out worksurfaces if you were selling, so I am afraid thats tough.
If hes paying the loan off, then let him have the furniture. So what if hes paid half the mortgage? The house is still only worth what you paid for it, so basically its his rent.
What about all the lost money on the wedding?
Sounds like you had a narrow escape with this loon.
What a lovely brother you have.

gemma0_5

We are keeping the wedding money discussion separate as they are two separate issues. Basically my parents want at least half and hopefully should get it as he has put it in writing on one cancellation letter that he was including his half of the fee. He's set a precedent there I feel. The solicitor involved re. the house has offered to put us in touch with another in her firm to attempt to get some money if he refuses to pay a penny towards it.

Im not sure if it has any bearing, but we each have our own bank accounts and pay into a joint account for mortgage etc. He has been 2 weeks late on the last two payments into this account. When we were together he was such a nag about making sure we paid in on time (I always did) and now he can't be bothered to. We have some money in there as a back up, which is lucky as we would be defaulting on the mortgage now if not.

My brother is fab (and has too much money, works abroad and has nothing to spend it on!)

pawpurrs

Is he single :rotfl:

gemma0_5

yes! But he lives in angola, I understand it's not a very pleasant place!

pawpurrs

Does he work in oil or diamonds or neither

gemma0_5

oil, but in the De Beers diamond building! But he refuses to bring me any back, something to do with customs!!

GDB2222

I think you aren't thinking straight on this. First of all, you need to split the £20,000 loan into two parts, A) one part for the furniture and the other part for the tiles and other fixtures in the house. I'm just going to assume that the parts A and B are each £10,000, just to make the numbers concrete.

So, your ex has put £10k into the house, £5k has gone into his half of the house and £5k has gone into your half of the house. You are now going to buy his half of the house at market value, which of course includes those fixtures. However, what about the £5k that's gone into the fixtures in your half of the house? Why do you think he's not entitled to that?

pawpurrs

Hes not entitled to it because it hasnt increased the value of the property,there is no Equity. If the decided to sell to someone else he wouldnt get the 5k back. If the improvements meant a profit on the house then he would be entitled to it.

gemma0_5

I think I might have confused people here! The loan has nearly £4000 left to pay (it was £7000 to start with), the 20K he is on about is how much he feels he has personally paid, in terms of deposit, mortgage repayments etc. He would lose this regardless. I would if the roles were reversed. He surely can't claim back on his 'rent' for the last two years and expect to get his living expenses covered by me! Im not sure if I should think this way, but if we were just to sell up, then the loan still exists, so he takes furniture and sells or whatever, but any money spent on fixtures etc. goes down the drain effectively.

gemma0_5

And yes, if there was a profit, I would give him half of that, but there's not. We're just lucky it's not negative equity.

Again, not sure if Im right, but Im trying to apply the same principles as if I was a private buyer