My mums ex is trying to fleece her!

Robin1980

Hi i need some urgent advice please.

My mum bought a property 6 years ago for £200,000. She put £90,000 of her own money in and the rest on a interest only mortgage. The mortgage was in her name only but she lived there with her boyfriend.

3 years ago my mum took out another mortgage on the property for £30,000. She was unable to get the extra mortgage on her own, so she put her boyfriend on that mortgage. somehow due to a clerical error they put him on both mortgages. How can that happen as it is a seperate mortgage?

During the time they were together my mum paid the whole mortgage 95% of the time,. He occasionally paid his half of the remortgage.

Since they have split he has been demanding 50% of the equity in the house. My mum said he was only entitled to half of the £30,000 remortgaged. She has spoken to the mortgage provider, who have said that because she signed for it there is nothing they can do.

She spoke to a free solicitor who said that he is entitled to half of the equity which seems unbelieveable. He has done or paid nothing to increase the equity in the house and he never put the money in in the first place. Does this seem right?

Neither of them live in the house and he is dragging his feet over accepting to put it on the market as he wants to wait for the house prices to go back up, so he can get more money.

The situation gets worse, as my mum has now been made redundant and was walking a tight rope due to a previous business venture. She needs to sell the house to pay off her arrears as soon as possible but he still wont let it go on the market. Unfortunately after they split, due to him cheating, he said he would ruin her and that seems to be what he is managing.

Any advice regarding is entitlement to the equity would be greatly appreciated.

If you feel she has a case which type of solicitor should she go for? I am willing to pay for it if it helps getting him out of her life for good.

Many thanks

Robin

whitewing

How much is the house actually worth now? And is that from recent valuations?

Thrugelmir

If no declaration of trust was drawn up then, yes he can walk away with 50%.

Alternative is an expensive court case. Or some seriously hard bargaining to agree a settlement figure.

Sometimes there's little you can do after the event.

I do have empathy I should add. However very limited options are available.

Robin1980

Thanks for the replies.

There was no declaration of trust was everything was good between them at the time.

What i cant understand is how the mortgage provider manages to put his name on the completely separate mortgage by mistake and now wont take any responsibility for it.

He has sent many requests for a settlement figure but when it was offerred to him, he turned it down as he still hoped to get back with her and realised he would then have no hold on her. Now he is trying to make her life difficult so wont do anything. He isnt even paying for the mortgage now.

Another bit of advice please. The failed business venture was before they bought the house. It was purchased with 110,000 of my mums money. They ran into major difficulty and to enable my mum to get the 90,000 back out, which eventually bought the house, she put the arrears onto credit cards. She is still paying for them today and he has just walked away. He has never paid towards these. Surely as he would have been jointly liable for the business losses there should be some way to get that money back from him?

Robin1980

Sorry to sound stupid but surely if you are added to a mortgage you should be entitled to half of anything from that point not from before you added.

In answer to the first reply the house is worth what it was when she bought it.

theoretica

I am puzzled- surely being on the mortgage only confers responsibility for the debt? Is he also on the house deeds?

If it were as simple a rule as 50% each then divorce cases would be more straightforward than they are!

zzzLazyDaisy

Two points:

1 you cannot be a party to a mortgage on a property which you do not own. So the only way he could have been 'added to the mortgage' is if the house was put in joint names. There are two ways to own a house - as 'joint tenants' in which case they both own all the house, or as 'tenants in common' in which case one can own 90%, and the other 10% (or whatever shares they decide on). She presumable had legal advice at the time, as she would have needed a solicitor to put the house into both names.

2 it is highly unlikely that there are two mortgages on the property, as the normal way is to remortgage - so that both loans are joined together into one new mortgage. But it isn't the fact that he has his name on the mortgage that is the problem, it is the fact that he is a joint owner of the house.

themull1

I've got five seperate mortgages on my house, they all come out as a seperate direct debit.

opinions4u

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

you cannot be a party to a mortgage on a property which you do not own.

You can. It's unusual but it is possible.

So clarity from the OP on who legally owns the property would help.

Although seeing a solicitor is the most sensible course of action here.

ACG

Does 1 person own the property (a la mortgage 1) or 2 people (a la mortgage 2).

Presuming both mortgages are with the same lender, there are just 2 parts to the same mortgage so you cant have seperate names on them.

As for resolving this, your mum needs to get bank statements showing she made the bulk of the payments then get it infron of a solicitor to write him a strongly worded letter possibly with the evidence.

Robin1980

Thanks. Having spoken to my mum and she says the mortgage is with one lender and there is two parts with both of there names on. She that solicitors letters have been sent but he replied that he wants 50%. They werent able to offer advice on taking him to court as it wasnt there area of expertise.

I am not sure if he is on the deeds but will be making enquiries tomorrow and will go and look at my mums paperwork.

She has all bank statements showing all payments made by her. The trouble is she hasnt had the money to fight it in court and didnt want to fight it if there was a good chance she could lose and be even more worse off.

She decided to play nice so that he would agree to sell the property and at least she could then right it off and move on but he still wont let it go on the market.

Can she force a sale?

Which type of solictior should i take her to?

Thanks