Relationship break up - property owned as joint tenants

mac123

As the title suggests, we have a jointly owned property worth 250k and the £50k deposit was all my savings and equity from my previous property in my sole name. She has only paid 1/2 of the mortgage since we moved in 5 months ago.

We have no children and she has decided to move out but is now forcing the issue and wants me to sell the house which I don't want to do.

Any advice will be appreciated.

Thanks

edinburgher

Are you married? If not, surely the easiest thing would be to find the money to pay back her payments towards the property?

Unless my maths is totally off, should only be a few thousand? Not entirely sure why she'd expect you to sell the house unless there is other info you're not telling us.

After all, it should be easy enough to prove how much she has/hasn't paid towards the deposit/mortgage etc.

mac123

Hi thanks for your reply.

No, not married

Yes i have money to pay back everything she has paid but it's not acceptable to her. This is why i unfortunately need a legal perspective.

mostlycheerful

I don’t immediately see any reason why she could reasonably ask you to sell up, other than just to spite you.

Except that I assume that her name is on the mortgage so in that sense she has some bargaining power and can therefore be negative towards you about it should she wish to be.

So perhaps it is in your interests to try to mollify her in one way or another, if you can. Of course if the split is not amicable then perhaps that may not be possible.

In which case then perhaps a reasonable and rather generous to her solution to consider doing, just to try to get her off your back, might be to offer to repay her the 5 months of half the mortgage that she’s paid.

Although even that would be generous as she would have probably had to pay rent elsewhere to house herself for the 5 months - unless perhaps she would have been staying with parents for free or done house sitting or squatting instead or such like. Or maybe unless perhaps she could have and would have bought a cheap place on her own somewhere else. So if any of these actually do realistically apply then perhaps bear them in mind. And if she doesn’t accept the 5 x half the mortgage then perhaps offer her an extra couple of grand. Or even five grand. If she doesn’t accept that, well, oh dear, maybe she’s just got it in for you whatever you say or do.

Yes, if she would likely have just been paying rent for the 5 months then she has less of an argument for any recoupment.

Perhaps it’s not so much just about money and more about emotion. Perhaps over the next few weeks the possible emotional rawness might subside, if you’re lucky or if you can do anything to reduce it. But maybe not, sometimes it just gets worse and people dig in and feed off the negativity. What kind of person is she, reasonable or unreasonable? And how amicable or non amicable is the split – how hurt or angry is she? These may inform your decision making.

The property is unlikely to particularly be worth any more (or less) than it was 5 months ago when you bought it so she can’t particularly reasonably assert that there’s any equity (or, indeed, negative equity) that ought to be divvied up. And even if there was any equity then your £50k deposit was an important ingredient that enabled the purchase and so any divvying up should be weighted to take account of that.

So evidently you didn’t have any exit route negotiated, planned and agreed at the start. So perhaps the one slightly positive thing that may come out of this is that if you ever go into business with anyone else you will now know that the exit route needs to be in a written and signed agreement at the outset.

Sorry I can’t be any more constructive than this but I hope that nevertheless this possibly helps your thinking and decision making. Good luck.

Jowo_2

The Shelter website has some basic info for homeowners who have a relationship breakdown. Go and see a solicitor about your rights. If you can't reach an amicable settlement with her, then she would have to gain a court order to force you to sell the property.

If she consented to coming off the mortgage/deeds, do you have sufficient income to take on the mortgage yourself? Because I assume a lender will need evidence that you earn enough to pay the mortgage on your sole salary.

BitterAndTwisted

Just tell her that the property has lost 20% of its value since it was bought and you'll be looking to her to pay you half of that if she wants out. I'd also remind her that should she force a sale it will cost around 2% in estate agents fees as well plus conveyancing and both of your moving costs. I can see her 50% share of the mortgage payments and more being totally wiped out

You really should have sought a legal perspective before you made a joint commitment.

mac123

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

You really should have sought a legal perspective before you made a joint commitment.

We did seek a legal perspective but telling her at the time that I need to amend the legal papers just so that when we break up she would have nothing of my deposit would not have gone down too well. No-one can predict what was to happen but in hindsight yes you're right!

mac123

mostlycheerful wrote: »

Perhaps it’s not so much just about money and more about emotion. Perhaps over the next few weeks the possible emotional rawness might subside, if you’re lucky or if you can do anything to reduce it. But maybe not, sometimes it just gets worse and people dig in and feed off the negativity. What kind of person is she, reasonable or unreasonable? And how amicable or non amicable is the split – how hurt or angry is she? These may inform your decision making.

The property is unlikely to particularly be worth any more (or less) than it was 5 months ago when you bought it so she can’t particularly reasonably assert that there’s any equity (or, indeed, negative equity) that ought to be divvied up. And even if there was any equity then your £50k deposit was an important ingredient that enabled the purchase and so any divvying up should be weighted to take account of that.

Thanks a lot for this ... yeah it probably is an emotional reaction, doesn't want anyone else in the place etc but hopefully that will subside. There's absolutely nothing to gain by selling apart from the fact i'll have £50k in my bank whilst trying to check into a hotel

Thanks again for the advice

PS - I am hoping that I can take the mortgage on my own however that's for another day!

p00hsticks

mac123 wrote: »

PS - I am hoping that I can take the mortgage on my own however that's for another day!

You say that's for another day, but I would have thought that in fact it's pretty fundamental to the whole thing. If you are are not in a position to be able to take on the whole mortgage, then surely your only option is to sell ? You can't expect your ex to continue to be named on and paying part of the mortgage when she has moved out.

mac123

I can take the mortgage in my own name, just getting her to agree to it comes first but thanks anyway

BitterAndTwisted

If she forces you to sell the house it's unlikely that she will be able to walk away with a penny and I think it's pretty likely that she could owe you several thousands. Does she have that sort of sum in savings?. I think you should impress this on her pretty forcefully. The days of a property increasing in value after only five months are long gone.

Even if you had been married, when a couple separate after a short time, the courts generally seek to return each partner to the financial position they were in at the start. Which would leave you with your £50k of equity and half of the property's increase in value. These days that would most probably be less than the purchase-price was.

I wonder if she fancies coming up with the possible negative equity in a cash sum or whether she'd like to pay you monthly?