please help_hes taking my nan to the cleaners!

dp313

many thanks for the useful replies.

that gives me enough to go on! peerhaps in my initial post I was a little emotional and naieve, but believe me im not! I'm well aware of much of the facts but just dont know of anyone who has actually been through a situation like this, and I know you lot are on the whole very very knowledgable!

thanks, now how do I delete this thread, or can someone do it for me?

Errata

Your nan needs a solicitor, but bearing in mind she's apparently consulted two already and your father is preparing to consult a third, clearly that's not so straightforward for your family. It should be, there's no point in shopping around for legal advice in the hope that the advice given is what is wanted, rather than what is needed.

madmish00

there's no point in shopping around for legal advice in the hope that the advice given is what is wanted, rather than what is needed.

I don't think that is what the OP is doing. They are looking for legal advice that is consistent

If different solicitors are giving different advice how is the OP meant to know which one is correct, unless they consult further solicitors and a consistent thread emerges (i.e they see four solicitors and 3 say he is only entitled to the 12k with only one saying he is entitled to 50%)

neneromanova

If it's still completely in her name, and they weren't married he might have a harder time than he thinks wouldn't you think? You could argue that he would have paid that much if he was in his own place. Also he put 12k in, she then paid 7k for the extension on the house which then made the house worth more due to the exrension, so really he should only get 5k as that's the difference that he paid.

If you do fight this you need a rotweiller of a solicitor :mad:

poppysarah

She needs to work out how much she's spent on the house in the time he was with her (perhaps proving he may have contributed a smaller amount than he has?)


It sounds mean but disproving his good character might end up being useful. Does he have a history of preying on vulnerable women (ie: has his new woman got a house and money? Does she know he was still seeing your nan)
A court case might be unpleasant - I don't know whether you can get a potentially hostile witness to be useful though -

if their relationships overlapped then that makes him look bad. Whether that helps your nan or not is difficult to say.

Is he getting legal aid or has he already invested some cash in paying for his own legal advice?

Picking a solicitor means spending money - that's a huge step and perhaps making him an offer to settle out of court might be the easiest thing to do?

If she lived there 25 years and he contributed for 6/25 half then he's entitled to 3/25 of the value of the house.
She could get some valuations from EA and then offer him 3/25 of the value.

HappyMJ

poppysarah wrote: »

If she lived there 25 years and he contributed for 6/25 half then he's entitled to 3/25 of the value of the house.
She could get some valuations from EA and then offer him 3/25 of the value.

Morally that would be right but the legal system doesn't work like that. They bought it together 6 years ago and he's paid the mortgage payments since. It doesn't matter that she was the one entitled to the heavy discounting but it may count in her favour. You could ask what was the market value at the time of purchase? £50k? Which may be likely then the house has increased in value 100% they split half each so he could get £25k....A good solicitor is needed and it's highly likely she'll have to buy him out for something and I really do hope it's nearer to the £12k than the £50k he's asking for.

westernpromise

I've no idea if this would work in law, but surely there is an argument here that he was in effect renting. She provided him with a roof and paid the utilities. He paid money every month. This was paid, for convenience, into her mortgage account.

If she gives him that money back, that means he has never paid to live there. If he's now saying that that was always his money and he wants it back, doesn't he also have to admit that he's never paid to live there and thus owes her back rent?

He got 6 years' use of a £100k property. Rental yields are about 5%, so if he'd co-rented a house in the usual way he would have paid his half of that - £2500 a year, plus half the bills. Utilities, phone, insurance, etc. Call it £3000 a year.

So if she owes him his "mortgage" payments back, he must now logically owe her rent of about £18000. Call it £20000 with the interest.

I don't know if it works but it might be worth mentioning?

tleefox

So sorry to hear of this situation - terrible that someone in such an elderly and vulnerable position is being treated in such a manner.

If this was me I probably cannot say on a public forum what I would do, but it would not involve taking legal advice or anything along those lines.

Good luck and hope it works out well for your nan.

RAS

More importantly, get your nan to make a new will urgently. She can do this without any problems.

Tiddlywinks

tleefox wrote: »

terrible that someone in such an elderly and vulnerable position is being treated in such a manner.

Just because someone is a 'nan' doesn't automatically mean that they are elderly or vulnerable. She might be in her 50s and looking forward to being footloose and fancy free again (obviously once this mess is sorted).