Can someone make me sell my house?

dancingfairy

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

Hold on, what if...

Is it possible (or am I dreaming this) that if you are in bad enough unsecured debt then your creditors can take you to court and force the sale of your house?
If so, what if MIL is in that situation?
Maybe MIL has no way to force the sale of the house, but do her creditors?

I believe that technically if you owe a lot of money in unsecured debt that it is a possibility that a creditor could make you sell your home but in practice no. They could get a CCJ and a charging order against the house which would entitle them to money in the event of a sale but they would have to go to court to attempt to enforce a sale (and from what I understand these are very, very rare- almost unheard of).
What could be more of a concern is whether the mother secured any loans against the house (and stopped paying), or whether she entered into any formal agreements with her creditors - ie an IVA or bankruptcy. However there is no evidence to suggest this so until the OP knows more information it is based on speculation. The OP needs to speak to the mother in law and get to the bottom of it (or get a family member to do so).
Best of Luck
df

dancingfairy

Approaching this from a different angle:
1) how much do you think your mother in law is owed? 1/3 of any equity presumably? - whatever she has not had to pay in rent? You might want to point out that you feel she is only entiteld to x amount which could quickly be swallowed in legal fees.
df

GDB2222

But she isn't only entitled to 1/3rd equity. She's entitled to 1/3rd of the house value, although she ranks after the mortgage, so if that eats up more than 2/3rds the value she won't get her full entitlement.

And yes, of course, legal fees would be ruinously expensive all round, although the losing side pays nearly all of it in the end.

GDB2222

Oh, and they haven't paid anything to mother to buy out her share. Paying their own mortgage to fund their 2/3rds is not paying anything to mother, and so it's just a question of whether they have paid more than their share of expenses or not. Even so, that's really just in the rough and smooth of sharing a house.

sonastin

dancingfairy wrote: »

I believe that technically if you owe a lot of money in unsecured debt that it is a possibility that a creditor could make you sell your home but in practice no. They could get a CCJ and a charging order against the house which would entitle them to money in the event of a sale but they would have to go to court to attempt to enforce a sale (and from what I understand these are very, very rare- almost unheard of).

Throw in the facts that:
-the mother isn't listed on the title deeds so she is not a legal owner of the property
-the mother isn't resident at the property and
- the registered owners who are not responsible for the unsecured debt are resident at the property

no judge in the land is going to make innocents homeless to force them to repay an open-ended trust to settle someone else's unsecured debt.

flogget06

Have been to see her father today and in a very long conversation about the weather and what he has been eating for dinner have asked about mother. He said she is doing really well for herself and has been with her new partner a while and his children. They all get on really well and mother loves taking the children (ages 15+) out shopping and asked if we had been out with them? I felt so sorry for my other half hearing that. We didn't tell her father anything as he is too old. He also said they are looking at holidays and homes as mothers new partner is going to sell his house and they will get something bigger together.

GDB2222

so, if I understand this correctly, mother wants her money out of the house so that she can move in with her new partner and they will get something a bit better. Is she fully aware that the snag with that is that her son will become homeless? Obviously, the new partner is pressing mother to get her money out of the house, but he may become less aggressive if he really understands the wedge that is driving between mother and son.

Obviously, you want to know where you stand legally, and you need to be aware that quite often on this website people give advice that later turns out to be wildly optimistic. there seems to be a general view that it is better to be optimistic rather than realistic.

However, rather than concentrating on the legal side, you may want to try to get everybody together to agree something that makes sense for all parties. For example, even if you put the house on the market now, you can still make it very difficult to sell. (You can boil fish every time someone comes round to view the house, or something equally obnoxious.) So, there is no point in mother insisting on something she is legally entitled to, if in practice you can stymie things. On the other hand it would be totally unfair of you to want to keep her money tied up in the house indefinitely, so you need to come up with a proposal for a realistic timescale for you either to remortgage so that mother can be paid out or if that fails to agree that you will then market the house willingly.

samtoby

What about a suggestion of mediation? I by no means know anything but I am thinking a meeting where everything is recorded etc if it turns nasty there is a list of the conversation.

What a horrid situation to be in.

BitterAndTwisted

It sounds to me like the OP and partner may have more options than they think they have. It's all very persuasive to say the the property is perfect for them, lived there a long time the fostered animals yadda yadda yadda. But that's not the whole story. It may be possible, if they accept that the situation must change, that it will change eventually everything depends on how much equity there is, what that will leave the OP and partner to buy another. Maybe there's enough to buy another, smaller property outright?

Accepting this could make a future relationship with the mother possible. It's no-one's fault that someone's plans and priorities have changed. It's possible that the OP and partner have managed to live in a nicer and larger property than they could ever have provided for themselves with their own resources. That makes them fortunate and not necessary the victims of outright unfairness or selfishness

xylophone

Re post no 58 "(1) partner and myself shall hold the Property upon trust as to one-third of the gross proceeds of sale of the Property for mother absolutely "

You need to distinguish between legal ownership and beneficial ownership. Legal ownership is as registered at the land Registry. You and your partner have legal ownership. On the other hand, what actually counts is beneficial ownership, which the paragraph I have just quoted above says is one third owned by mother."

But does it? If that were the case, would the deed not say "partner and myself shall hold one third of the property on trust for mother absolutely"?
What seems to be held on trust is one third of the sale proceeds if the house is sold?
Re post no 70
"I think the trust deed provides for a sale if mother wishes. This is backed up by the solicitor's off-the-cuff 99% remark."


Where does the Deed provide for a sale "if Mother wishes"? I have read the Deed again and can't find where this is stated.

Clearly GDDB 2222 has experience in such matters but I can't quite see how the Deed as set out by the OP bears out his comments?

Is the OP's situation covered here http://www.questbrook.co.uk/solename.htm?