Relationship Breakdown - Mortgage Problem.

marks77

***Bump***

simpywimpy

a friend of mine was in the same situation. Her solicitor told her that unless her partners name was on the deeds as well as the mortgage, he had no legal claim at all. I would get a second opinion personally.

marks77

Unfortunately, he is on the deeds as well as the mortgage.

marks77

He has received the letter from his solicitor to say that he is not entitled to Legal Aid as the house is is in negative equity. It's all got very nasty and he is REFUSING to get off the mortgage. He says he will wait a couple of years until the market recovers.

HOW CAN SHE GET HIM OFF THE MORTGAGE??

He pays nothing, has paid nothing and will continue to pay nothing yet wants a share of the equity if and when it recovers.

Help please!!!!!!!

money_maker_3

She only has one option of taking him to court and getting him off that way IF the court agree. But unless he changes his mind and agrees to sign the house over, then I dont think there are any other options

Pee

She needs to be speaking to her solicitor.

It sounds like he is entitled to half because she gave it to him. Shame, but that's the way it is. She can force a sale, but she cannot force him to give his share back to her, and the mortgage company might not release him anyway.

I do feel for her. She made a silly mistake because she trusted someone who couldn't be trusted, and pretty much everyone has done that at one time or another.

Bossyboots

marks77 wrote: »

He has received the letter from his solicitor to say that he is not entitled to Legal Aid as the house is is in negative equity.

That doesn't sound right, as the house is the subject of the dispute and therefore wouldn't normally count as an asset for the legal aid calculation (there is a mortgage limitation but usually a property would need to be in the region of £500000 market value before it was counted).

It sounds more like he may well have other assets/income that ruled him out and maybe your sister is unaware of.

He shouldn't be entitled to half after such a short time, regardless of being on the deeds but it is not a simple matter to settle. Your sister's first priority should be to ensure that if they are on the deeds as joint tenant that she sends him notice severing the tenancy so that if anything untoward happened to her, he wouldn't automatically get the whole property.

marks77

Thanks, Bossyboots.

My reply above was a little confusing . He had been granted legal aid but his solicitor decided not to take the case on at this time as ;
a) she couldn't force my Sister to sell on behalf of her client because of her having an 10 yr old daughter and
b) more importantly, the house is in negative equity, hence any settlement would not be beneficial to my sister's ex.

So, he did have Legal Aid but his solicitor has made him aware that Legal Aid will not flog a dead horse...Ha Ha!

Anyway, thanks for the advice, re severing the Tenancy. I'll pass that important info on.

Debt_Free_Chick

This is not legal advice and not a substitute for it, but this is the letter I sent to my ex to sever our joint tenancy:-

I, [your name in full e.g. Mary Susan Smith] of [your current address in full] GIVE YOU NOTICE of my desire to sever the joint tenancy in equity of [the adddress of the jointly owned property] registered at HM Land Registry under title No [title number - check the deeds/Land Register] now held by you and me as joint tenants both at law and in equity, in shares to be decided*


* "In shares to be decided" is the term used where the equity is not split 50/50 or where that was the original intention, but the shares may now be unequal e.g. due to one party being owed capital or one party having contributed more etc.

Legally, this notice needs to be "served" on the other party, in the same way that a writ is served. And ideally, you send two copies and ask the other party to sign the second copy and send it back as proof of receipt. Proof of receipt is preferred, but not necessary, as the notice only has to be "served" to be legally valid.

Traditionally, you had to hand this to the other party and state that you were "serving" the notice. These days, posting it is sufficient - but use a "signed for" service and track it via Royal Mail so you can view the signed receipt. Having said that, this again is not now strictly necessary, but it can help to avoid disputes where the other party claims that the notice has not been served (sigh ....). As you can imagine, I've "been there, done that!!!!" Eventually, I served a third copy of the notice on my ex, in the presence of a mediator, as he had refused to acknowledge service of the previous two copies. With the mediator present when I served the third copy, there was "no argument there, then"

Once the notice is served, you then complete the Land Registry form to convert the ownership from joint tenancy to tenants in common. I'll dig that out and post a link ..... later ....

HTH

marks77

Thank you very much.