Help Needed Please - Info on Non Cohabiting Couples owning a house

silvercar

shameless-about-money wrote: »

The Land Registry should have the details of the % share and if it doesn't, then it will be 50/50 if the mortgage is joint.

But if one party won't agree to the sale on this basis, the property won't be sold. With a joint tenancy, one party can't force the other to agree to a sale.

shameless-about-money

Yes I know that!

jordylass

As tenants in common with 2 owners can one of those owners force a sale?
When the form A restriction is sent to Land Registry is it automatically allocated a 50/50 split.
If one person lives in the house for 10 years after the split and pays the mortgage, when the house is sold would the equity be split equally and who/how is it disbursed?

olive84

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

If the house was registered as a joint tenancy, then the house must be sold and the proceeds split 50/50. The fact that she put more in than him, and he has paid the deposit, is irrelevant.

.

That's not true. There is nothing to say that joint tenants own 50/50 shares in a property. If there is no other legal agreement between the two over who gets what the only way to determine it is through the courts. Obviously by that stage there is nothing left to fight over. This was explained to me recently by my fab sol when he recommended me and my partner buy as tenants in common with a 50/50 share, so if we split up it would be easy to split the proceeds of the sale.

pooranddesperate

There was an important legal judgement handed down by the house of lords recently on how to deal with the division of property when joint owners split up (Stack -v- Dowden)

If they own the property as joint tenants (which is probably most likely) then that means that they both own the whole property (not a distinct share, as you would if you owned it as tenants in common).

The recent house of lords decision basically said that the starting point is a 50/50 division, and that it is for the party who is arguing that it should be anything other than a 50/50 division to prove their case.

Unless the parties expressly agreed when they brought the property that she would be entitled to more than half should they split then i think that it would be difficult for her to get more than 50%. I would strongly advise him to go and seek legal advice - it is likely that her solicitors know all about this recent case but are simply trying it on to get more than 50%.

Morally whether he should give her back her deposit is a different matter (and then you get into discussions about the fact he has paid the mortgage etc etc.)