Relationship Breakdown - Mortgage Problem.

marks77 · 5 February 2009 at 8:54PM

Hi, I'll try and keep this short. I'm posting on behalf of my Sister you has had a rough old 18mnths to be honest and is curremtly overcoming a stroke. My sister and her partner had been together for 6 years and he eventually moved into her house. In May 08 my sister put her partner on the mortgage (which as you will learn was to be a big mistake). Things happened, Sis's partners dad was tragically killed, and my sisters health deteriorated culminating in a stroke and the relationship broke down. He was asked to leave in December and now he has gone to a solicitor to fight for half the house.

A couple of facts.
1. My sister put 40k down as a deposit to by the house. The house was originally in her name until May 08.
2. Since May 08 he has been unemployed mostly and has not paid anything towards the mortgage. Which is an interst only mortgage, so "if" he did pay anything nothing would have have actually been paid off the capital.
3. An extension was built for a new Kitchen which he is claiming that he worked 6 months in doing it. In truth it took three weeks and they employed other people to do the work. He only knocked out and through and helped board and plaster the extension.

I'm not sure if the the above are relevant but if you need any other answers to questions please ask and I'l try and give them to you.

Basically where does my Sister stand and what are his rights given the short time he has been on the mortgage and paid nothing towards it but has "carried" out work to it namely the kitchen.

I'm not sure if this is in the correct forum but mods feel free to move to enable this post to be seen by the appropriate experts in here.

Thank you all in advance for any help/advice that you may be able to give.

debtfreein4years · 6 February 2009 at 12:58AM

personally i would be livid at the ex and would be tempted to round up a couple of mates and go round and beat the crap out of him. ok now thats been done mentally my advice is go to see a solicitor as if he is callous enough to go for her house when he has contributed nothing then she needs proper legal advice. she should get every scrap of evidence together that she can, invoices for paying for the extension even down to showing who's bank account it came out of including mortgage payments.

good luck to her and hope it works out for her xx

LittleTinker · 6 February 2009 at 3:13AM

marks77 wrote: »

Hi, I'll try and keep this short. I'm posting on behalf of my Sister you has had a rough old 18mnths to be honest and is curremtly overcoming a stroke. My sister and her partner had been together for 6 years and he eventually moved into her house. In May 08 my sister put her partner on the mortgage (which as you will learn was to be a big mistake). Things happened, Sis's partners dad was tragically killed, and my sisters health deteriorated culminating in a stroke and the relationship broke down. He was asked to leave in December and now he has gone to a solicitor to fight for half the house.

A couple of facts.
1. My sister put 40k down as a deposit to by the house. The house was originally in her name until May 08.
2. Since May 08 he has been unemployed mostly and has not paid anything towards the mortgage. Which is an interst only mortgage, so "if" he did pay anything nothing would have have actually been paid off the capital.
3. An extension was built for a new Kitchen which he is claiming that he worked 6 months in doing it. In truth it took three weeks and they employed other people to do the work. He only knocked out and through and helped board and plaster the extension.

I'm not sure if the the above are relevant but if you need any other answers to questions please ask and I'l try and give them to you.

Basically where does my Sister stand and what are his rights given the short time he has been on the mortgage and paid nothing towards it but has "carried" out work to it namely the kitchen.

I'm not sure if this is in the correct forum but mods feel free to move to enable this post to be seen by the appropriate experts in here.

Thank you all in advance for any help/advice that you may be able to give.

You need to get her to take all this to a solicitor.

But....it is unlikely that as it was her house before they met.....that she would have to leave. She may be asked to give him his 'share' in monetry value....and a good solicitor would make this amount very very small indeed.

She can then apply to pay this in installments.......or in a lump sum when the house is sold.

I would tell her not to worry too much and he has no Beneficial Interest in the house......that is the legal term for it by the way.

Hope that helps.

But also, try asking on the Mortgage board

marks77 · 6 February 2009 at 11:45AM

Thanks for all your replys. I will feed back to my Sister. Any chance a Mod could move this to a more suitable forum board??

marks77 · 7 February 2009 at 11:57PM

***bump***

Vomityspice · 8 February 2009 at 11:35AM

The starting point would be to say, go and see a solicitor. He/she will then be able to tell your sister there is little chance of him getting anything.

What he is attempting to do is suggest he has a beneficial interest in the house (via a constructive trust I presume?). When you say, 'put him on the mortgage' I also presume you just mean that? as opposed to registering him on the land registry (i.e. a legal interest in land).

Either way, as he has been there for such a short amount of time, and he would be unable to evidence he has put anything into the house, it would be unlikely any claim he made would be successful.

As he is unlikely to have any money, let him spend what he has on this nonsense.

marks77 · 11 February 2009 at 8:07PM

My sister has sought advice from a solicitor who has had sight of the mortgage deeds. It appears that he legally owns half the house as the deeds don't outline anything else to the contrary regardless of the 40k put down by my sister. As my sister earns over the ceiling she is not entitled to Legal Aid and doesn't want to risk losing (although I don't think she would) and have to fork out costs that could be thousands. The next step is "mediation" with her ex through an invitation from his solicitor. She will attend armed with all the facts etc and hopefully, then will the world see he isn't entitled to a penny!

Anybody here know what the process of "mediation" involves when sorting out disputes like this? Are they a panel of mediators or are they legal people who simply look at the facts and arbitrate accordingly?

Once again, if this post fits in better on another part of the forum could Mods help me move it?

Thanks.

jack*tigger · 11 February 2009 at 10:19PM

Just a thought but has she had the house valued recently.

I'm just thinking that the value of the house might have dropped significantly in these troubled times. If so the difference between the mortgage value and the property value might be low enough for it not to worth arguing over i.e. half the equity might be less than expected legal fees. It might even be in negative equity so he should pay her !

marks77 · 28 February 2009 at 12:05PM

My sister has had the house valued and after all costs etc have been incorporated it looks as athough he will owe my sister some money! The next problem my sister foresees is that he will refuse to come off the mortgage and insist he stays on the deeds until the housing market picks up again increasing his chances of getting some money out of my sister which he is clearly not entitled to.

If he stays on the mortgage surely he should be asked to contribute if he wants to take advantage of more favourable conditions in the housing market during the next few years?

Once again any further advice will be gratefully appreciated.

anguk · 28 February 2009 at 12:26PM

If there is no money in the house the sensible solution would be for the ex to come off the mortgage and walk away. My sister did this when she split up from her partner, they'd both paid equal amounts into the house but there was no equity in it as they'd only bought it the year before so she just signed it over to her ex.

However it looks as though your sister's ex is a bit of an !!!! (how cruel of him to go after half the house) so he may not walk away. Is the mortgage in both their names? If he wants to retain half the house until the market picks up then he should be paying half the bills!

smartpicture · 28 February 2009 at 2:43PM

You could point out to the ex that by staying on the mortgage, if your sister were to lose her job (which is always possible in this recession), then the mortgage company is entitled to come after him for the whole amount, not just 'his' half. That might put him off. Most people in this situation are desperate to get their name off the mortgage.