Joint owners - relationship breakdown - what are my rights?

Gorgeous_George

The whole mortgage is yours as much as it is your ex partner's.

Unless there was something in writing, the deposit can be ignored - consider it as a gift. It has nothing to do with the mortgage and it is ONLY the mortgage that you need to be concerned with. If you have paid for furniture etc., go and collect it if you want it.

Your ex partner should stop paying the mortgage until you agree a deal with him because, as you say, you could share any profit (not that there is likely to be any) despite having walked away from your responsibilities (by not paying towards the mortgage).

If one of you cannot, or will not, take a mortgage for the full amount (to 'buy' the other half out) you need to sell, have it repossessed or come to an agreement via your solicitors. Selling may require you both taking unsecured loans to repay the negative equity.

If one of you can take the mortgage on, the other could be expected to pay something for being released from the mortgage.

GG

RLH33

cherrybelle wrote: »

I guess what I want to know is, if my name has to stay on the mortgage (to avoid selling the place), what are my rights? Because it sounds as if (according to my ex's family) that my name would have to stay, but only for the sake of keeping the house - all future profit would go to my ex. Surely that is not the case when we are joint owners - if my ex wouldn't be able to afford the mortgage then I'd have to pay it.
They have also asked me to sign a document stating that I am giving away my rights to the house and any future profit. I will obviously not sign that, and my solicitor has strongly advised me not to sign anything either.

As your Solicitor has said you should certainly not sign any documents relinquishing your rights to the house. As far as I see it you have two choices 1) you force a sale now and pay your half of the negative equity or 2) wait until the house comes out of negative equity and force a sale then, if you judge it right then there will still be no profit to speak of - it literally breaks even. However in the meantime you are tied to him and the house and if he defaults on the mortgage you become liable.

I don't think you need to worry about splitting the profit as there will be no profit for a considerable amount of time and seeing as you are not paying your half of the mortgage then any rights to it would be very small.

Your name does not have to stay on the mortgage, you can get it off by forcing him to either take on your half of the mortgage, which sounds unlikely, or sell the house and take on your half of the debt.

I sympathise with you as you are stuck between a rock and a hard place, neither option is particularly good.

SouthCoast

I don't think you need to worry about splitting the profit as there will be no profit for a considerable amount of time

Agreed............

Gorgeous_George

You cannot force him to do anything. Go in with that attitude and he may get awkward.

Negotiation is the way forward.

A Court could order a sale but he could ignore the Court. He could stop paying the mortgage and live there rent free, trashing his own credit score and yours as well. He could disappear and you cannot sell without his signature.

Be nice, be reasonable and be an adult.

GG

silvercar

If the lender agrees that he can take over the mortgage, you really have two options:

Let him take over the property and the mortgage. To be fair, you should pay him half the negative equity as he is taking on what was a shared debt and give him something to acknowledge he has been paying the whole mortgage for a while. Or

Refuse to sign anything continue as joint owners for a while, accepting that some sort of split will have to be agreed in the future. This runs the risk of him or you refusing to pay your fair share of the mortgage and landing the other with a bad credit record or worse.

If he is living in it without you, then to be fair, he should be paying you half the market rent for the property and you should be paying half the mortgage. In order to manage the house alone (bills + rent/ mortgage) it would be reasonable for him to take a lodger if he wants. If he is living in it he should pay all the utility and rates bills but you should both contribute to improvements.