A rather sad question - help appreciated

pna1

Can anyone help? A married couple I know have parted and the husband is presently not living in the marital home. Their "arrangement" is that he has always paid the mortgage (in excess of £650 p.m) whilst she paid the utilities and food bills. Good arrangement while it lasted.

The wife appears to want to get the property on the market as soon as possible. The split is only three weeks old even if it looks irrevocable.

The husband wants a little time to see whether he might be able to do a 'buy out' that saves estate agents fees and the like.

Question : Am I right in thinking that no estate agent can market the property UNLESS the husband and joint mortgagee agrees?

The whole situation is understandably causing tension and things being said in anger; I want to help if I can.

Ian_W

Last time I put our jointly owned property on the market with an EA I, alone, dealt with them and I signed the contract. I don't think the EA will query someone, as a matter of course, as to whether they have the right to sell the property.
That obviously would become a big problem if a buyer was found and it went through to lawyers.
Only my fairly recent experience, others may have different ones. Perhaps there was an assumption, as it was fairly obvious that there was a Mrs W living at home, that she agreed with selling.

HTH

distilled

If the property is in joint names, an Estate Agent may reluctantly market the property without both signatures but what's the point? When it comes to signing contracts when the property sells, both signatures will be needed.

They need to seek legal advice as a matter of urgency.

myfairlady

I found myself in the very unfortunate position of being the one that moved out and my ex put the house on the market without my knowledge. The agent hadn't questioned him and when I called to tell them I had not consented they were not best pleased! Basically its a huge waste of their time.

The good news is that it cannot be sold without both signatures if it is jointly owned. Its pretty pointless going through the hassle of marketing the property if both are not in agreement so theres no need to worry.

pna1

Many thanks for these reassuring replies.

BargainAholic_2

My partner & I rent my house from a private landlord & he has offered to sell the house to us for a certain price, but to get a free valuation we went to various different estate agents saying that we were the owners wanting to sell the house. They came round & we did the whole "We have owned the house 2 years & are moving away so need to sell" & we got our estimated valuation.

The estate agents are now bugging us to choose them to market "our" house.

So to be honest I think they are more interested in you picking them to market your house & never once did checks on me. You'd think that they would check!

[Deleted User]

when we sold our house, which for business reasons, was in my name, my husband had to sign to say that he agreed with the sale. I believe that the estate agent will market the house ok for you but the sticking point will be when it comes to the actual sale documents from your solicitor