Where do we stand?

starlite_2

Okay it's a very long story but I'll try to give as much detail as I can.

My OH's parents had property abroad which they inherited, which was intended to be passed to him. It comes from a long family tradition of property being passed onto the children when they are ready to leave home, and is fully what his grandparents wanted to happen.

When he left for university they sold the two flats and bought one in London for him. They also took out a mortgage to make up the difference, which had to be in both their names as obviously he was 18 and had no income! The intention always was, once he graduated and had steady employment it would be signed over to him.

We both moved in 6 years ago and have paid the mortgage every month since, we have also spent a fair amount on renovating/ decorating the place, and fully see it as 'our home'.

Then it got complicated, his parents divorced and after a long battle over who should remain named on the mortgage/ deeds his dad agreed to take his name off in exchange for a 'pay off' which was an amount then added to the mortgage.

We had a baby in November, so want to become fully financially independent, and my OH now earns enough to be accepted to take over the mortgage, but his mother has been refusing to do so.

She recently called 'just to let us know' she had hired builders to come and renovate the spare room, and install a new kitchen. This had not been discussed, and she went ahead, paying for it all. This caused no end of bad feeling, and a little suspicion on our part.

She is now sending me emails with lists of 1 bedroom flats for rent in our area, and quotations from estate agents on how much she can rent this flat out for.

We are extremely worried she is looking to rent out the flat from under us, his dad is aghast at this, and says it is far from what he wants, but obviously he now has no legal say in the matter. To rent even a one bedroom flat close to my OH's work will cost us £300 per month more than the mortgage, and would mean us moving to a worse area for schools, and sharing a room with our baby. (not to mention having barely enough money to live on)

She is refusing to discuss the matter at all, but it is causing constant strife for us. It seems very unfair, she hasn't paid a penny towards this place, we have always paid the mortgage, and never missed or made a payment late. We do not have any kind of formal tenancy agreement as she is his mother, and we fully trusted her.

What, if anything can we do? I'm at a loss and the stress is driving us crazy.

Many Thanks.

ukmonkey

How did you pay the mortgage? Directly to the mortgage company, or to your OH's mum, who in turn then paid the mortgage...?

starlite_2

It was a standing order to her, then she paid it directly from her account.

starlite_2

Another important fact I didn't mention, for much of the three years we were at university we had flatmates, who paid £400 or so per month which went directly to her (in addition to the full mortgage amount).
During this time we were expected to pay the excess on the bills that having another person around racked up.

Whilst the divorce was being settled we discovered she had never told his father about this money, and he had assumed that it either went towards the mortgage or we kept it.

ukmonkey

I'm no expert, and I only asked that question as I felt that the experts would need to know.

My gut instinct is that there will be little that you can do.

hopefully an expert will be along shortly to [hopefully] correct me....

I hope it all works out for you.