Family law

culitojazz

This is long winded but I hope someone can help.
My husband owns a house with his first wife, they had a divorce but nothing was put in place about the sale of the house. She still lives there. The second wife placed a court order on this house when she divorced him as it was still legally a shared asset. He could not pay and the judge ordered it be sold when the youngest was 18. This was 3 years ago and the first wife refuses to sell. The solicitor has told us we can do nothing! We can try to enforce the order (£10000) cant afford it!, Pay her off £30000( again cant afford it!) take her to court ( she may try to say she is entitled to more than 50% plus other financial gain as this was not ordered in court on her divorce) surely this cannot be right, that someone who has been divorced for 15 years still has a financial claim on the ex? so we are stuck where if she doesn't comply, there is 8% interest a year and after a few years she can also try to claim his pensions as recompense! we cannot get legal aid , and cannot afford solicitors. Please please if there is anyone who can help reply to this thread.

BigAunty

This isn't a relationship issue but a property issue - post in the house buying/selling forum.

The posters there will be able to advise how you can get a court order to force the sale. There is a recent thread on this topic by someone trying to sell a property half owned by an aunt which gives some idea how much this can cost (up to a grand according to that thread - where did you get the figure of 10k).

If you can't afford legal action, I'm not really sure that you have many options - perhaps borrow the money for the court order to force the sale? Pay back the debt when it has sold?

Or ask the second wife, who has a claim on the property to fund the legal action, drawing up an agreement with her solicitor that she will be refunded the cost of the court order upon the successful sale of the property on top of the money she is currently owed?

Just sounds like your friend is in a mess because he didn't sort out proper settlemetns with his previous two wives at the time of his divorce so it's biting him on the bum now.

19lottie82

You and your DH could move in. That might speed things along a little bit :rotfl:

Becles

culitojazz wrote: »

surely this cannot be right, that someone who has been divorced for 15 years still has a financial claim on the ex?

If there was no financial consent (or clean break) order drawn up when the divorces happened, then both wives still have a claim on any assets he owns now.

Best to get it sorted once and for all to protect yourselves from future claims.