who gets the house after relationship break up? i want to keep house

smokeyo

not sure if this is correct forum but i really need some advice.
I bought a house 1 yr ago with my partner. we're not getting on and we are going to break up. we both say we want to stay in house and pay the mortgage ourselves. the house price has went up about 80,000 in the last year.thats mainly why neither of us want to give up the house because nothing is affordavble anymore.
The house is in both our names and we have both paid the mortgage equally. i did pay the depsoit of about 10,000 and have worked on the house constantly for past year while my partner hasnt done a thing to the house.
i worried that i will have to give up the house to my partner.
any advice would be appreciated

scrummy_mummy_2

Things may have changed, but when I got divorced, the house was valued and my ex husband got 50% of the profits (it was more compicated than that but boiled down to that in the end.

If your house has increased in value by £80k since you bought it and you wish to keep it, you will be required to buy him out...buy his 50% of the house that means getting a mortgage ON YOUR OWN for whatever is outstanding on your current mortgage PLUS the £40k profit his share of the house had made.
Eg: If you bought for £100k, house is now worth £180k on open market, profit would be £80K. His 50% of this is £40K
You will need to get a mortgage for £140K.
Effectively you have to sell the house to yourself...you will need to see a solicitor to do the conveyancing to make sure all legal claims are tied up once and for all and be sure he has no further claim on the property once you separate finally.
Alternatively....one of you could move out and the house reamins in joint names....whoever moves out treats their share as an investment and you get some sort of equity share document drawn up to detail the arranegements formally...that way...both of you retain an interest in the initial ivestment and thus any rise/fall in value and one of you gets to live in the house.
Make sure you tie it all up legally though or you could get stuffed.

Alias_Omega

As above really..

House price at start (minus) House price now (minus) Deposit (then divide by 2)

That should be his / her share.

Buy them out, cash, savings,cars whatever, or live together.

Gorgeous_George

If the house has increased by 40%, so should the £10K.



GG

Alias_Omega

Tbh, if you want a clean split, do it the clean way, otherwise you will argue over furnature etc...

How about you just live together for 6 months, and see how you feel then. I think you could work it out, take guidance, marriage councilling, these days they do common law too.

how about take a chill pill, and take 4 weeks to go on holiday together, somewhere nice, india, domincan republic, somewhere on your own.

If you feel the same, then so be it.. though i think things can be worked out..

Lets hope there is no kids involved.

david29dpo

If you cant agree who gets the house, it will have to be sold. One or the other could get a court order to force a sale, but you dont want to go down that road!

irnbru_2

smokeyo wrote: »

not sure if this is correct forum but i really need some advice.

Search this forum with keywords like boyfriend or girlfriend, there are plenty of threads about how the proceeds should be divided.

For example, two people (A+B) buy a house for a £100K. Person A contributed £10K of a deposit and B contributed £0. Both pay mortgage equally.

Original purchase price = £100K
Deposit (A): £10K

A's share = ((100K-10K)/2) + 10K = 55%
B's share = ((100K-10K)/2) = 45%

If the house is sold for 200K, then:

A gets 110K and B gets 90K.

smokeyo wrote: »

the house price has went up about 80,000 in the last year.thats mainly why neither of us want to give up the house because nothing is affordavble anymore.

I get the impression that both of you think that you'll just take over the other half's mortgage payment and that'll keep it affordable. If neither of you can buy the other out then you'll have to remortage. So if it cost £100K and is now valued at £180K, someone is going to be paying a mortgage on £180K less their equity (?).

ixwood

I brought my ex out of our place. It's quite straight forward once you agree.

Paying the stamp duty again, for half the house is a stitch up though!!

Alan_M_2

If I were in this position right now, I would elect to sell or have my partner buy me out.

Take the equity and come to arrangement on the original deposit, walk away and leave them to it.

Bank your equity in a decent interest paying account, go and rent a flat or similar and sort yourself out. Or move in with family short term to clear your head.

There's far more going on in your mind than your next property decision, emotion needs to be removed from this.

You never know the long awaited correction may occur whilst you're reassessing your life and the equity in the the house that you no longer own may be wiped out, leaving yours intact in a bank account.

Of course, that may not happen.....

If you feel it irreconcilable, give it up and walk away as quickly and cleanly as you can, the rest of your life awaits you and will be on hold until your sort this out.

I got divorced this year, can you tell?

Debt_Free_Chick

smokeyo wrote: »

i worried that i will have to give up the house to my partner.

No-one and no Court will make you "give" the house to him/her (sorry, not sure!).

You each own some of the house and you each own some of the mortgage. If one of you wants to keep the house, then that party needs to buy the other party's share.

What you need to do is to establish what you own. Your starting point would be an initial deposit of £10k (worth, now ????? ) plus have of what's left (after deducting the mortgage ... or maybe more than half, if you want to claim something for the work you've done in the past year (be careful here, as it can be difficult to evaluate what this might be worth .... especially if it was merely "maintenance" on the property, rather than a definite increase in it's value).

HTH

zzzLazyDaisy

Lets just be clear about the deposit.

I am assuming that OP and partner are not married (the courts have wide ranging powers relating to property on divorce but the law is completely different for an unmarried boyfriend/girlfriend)

The only way to work out what the respective shares are in the property is to establish the basis on which the property was originally purchased. For a £3 fee you can do a search of the land registry on-line and get a copy of the title deed.

The titled deed will say EITHER that the property was purchased as 'joint tenants' OR as 'tenants in common'

If it is joint tenants, this means that they both own the house equally. The issue of who paid what is irrelevant. So when splitting up, you need to get an up-to date valuation - best advice is to get three valuations and probably take the middle one - deduct mortgage, solicitor's fees and any other fees associated with the split, and then divide the balance equally. That's what it will cost one partner to buy the other out.

If the property is registered as tenants in common, it will state clearly how the shares in the property are held, so you just use that formula. (This is the less likely scenario, but is becoming more common, especially where a couple or group of friends buy a house between them)

This should all have been discussed with you when you originally bought the house. The problem is, at that point you were probably so starry eyed and excited that the prospect of making provisions for what would happen if it didn't work out was probably the furthest thing from your mind.

Your best bet is to go and see a solicitor, prefereably the one who acted for you when you bought the house. Any discussions about the deposit and shares in the house will be recorded on their file and might be a starting point for discussions.

As others have said - whoever keeps the house will have to remortgage in their own name for the existing amount plus the amount that they need to buy the other out.

Daisy