Equity split trust deeds

ColinSt

My partner funded the deposit for our house of £21k. It was against the backdrop of my divorce and she suggested a trust deed just in case my ex laid claim to our new property. All went well for four years with me funding the mortgage, bills and food ( everything in other words). Last month she announced she wanted to split and would seek to invoke the trust deed. The result based on the first formal offer was that she would walk away with £63 and me £42k. I have been trying to convince here to accept 50/50 given that she hasn't paid a penny since the deposit.

Today I met with a solicitor and she advised I wasn't in a great place given the deed. Her advice was to agree a settlement based on paying the 21k from the deed in return for my partner refunding all the mortgage payments not made. This met with a straight refusal to even discuss.

Given we are still living under the same roof and the atmosphere is bad what can I do now to end this mess.

Kynthia

You might get more responses from.tge house buying and selling part of the forum.

Tge trust deed is a legal document that specifies tge percentages of ownership and possibly other factors involved in distributing the asset in the event of a disposal (deposit return). Ideally this document should have been updated if you no longer agreed with it as it's really unlikely you can go against what it states.

Negotiation is your best bet. Do you have bargaining power when it comes to any other joint assets or is there anything she wabts/needs from you? Have you worked out what money there is after the mortgage is redeemed compared to the sale price. How much of it does she want and how much do you think you and she should get?

Ozzuk

Sounds like you aren't married so my take would be you have no rights to her deposit so that should be discounted. You should however have an allowance for what you have paid in - but also taking into account any improvement (both money and effort you both put in).

If that doesn't count, then its a more simple sale price of house minus fees - minus mortgage - minus deposit then split 50/50.