Mortgage Dispute with Sister- please help

TheBookWorm

Where to begin?
Roughly 10 years ago I bought a house with my younger sister who was 19 at the time. I earned more then her at the time and it was agreed that i would pay 2/3 of the mortgage and other household bills and she would pay 1/3. We set up a joint account to pay the bills. She still found this a financial strain and after less than 18 months and a silly argument over who's turn it was to wash up, she moved back in with our Parents. Stating she wanted nothing more to do with the house, and promptly handed over her keys to our Parents and for 8 years has had nothing to do with the property and has never mentioned it. It was discussed about removing her name from the mortgage at the time, but my Parents advised against it as it as they said it would be difficult for me obtain a mortgage on my own. So I left everything as it was.
I did at times find it a struggle to pay the bills on my own and did increase the overdraft to give me a bit of breathing space. In 10 years I have never defaulted on the mortgage.

Now skip to the present day. She now has a boyfriend who is self-employed, and has a little side gig flipping houses. He would like to apply jointly for mortgages with her so he can do it on a bigger scale and increase his profits.
My sister asked me if I would look at having her name removed from the mortgage and offered to pay the legal fees. I made enquires with a solicitor and they said I needed a 'transfer of equity' but would need a solo mortgage in place. So I asked my current mortgage provider, if I could go solo, they turned me down. Stating that they only specialise in joint mortgages and that I had gone over my overdraft one month by £16, I was a high risk customer. I looked at remortgaging but was offered only financial crippling deals.This is when things got nasty. My sister must have gone on credit score website and seen that I'd increased the overdraft on the joint account (she hadn't bothered to look in 8yrs), Then the week before Christmas 2016 she takes upon herself to freeze the joint bank account. I'm left frantically trying to rearrange all the direct debits from the account before anything bounces, but this still affects my credit rating hugely. I explained this to my sister and she accuses me of deliberately 'dragging my feet'.
They split up shortly after this and everything goes quiet for a few months, until last week (they're now back together) and she is now threatening legal action against me. She's claiming that I've not responded to any of her text messages and I'm deliberately ignoring her. I've honestly not heard a peep off her for 5 months.
Since May 2017 I've changed employment, so now, not only do I have bad credit I'm also in a probation period for my new job and have taken a pay cut. I'm struggling to find a mortgage on my own. She is demanding that I pay off the overdraft immediately. I don't have the money.
I have offered to sell the house as i'd like to move closer to where I work, but this isn't good enough as she's not prepared to wait for the sale. I'm not too sure if the house is in negative equity. I have invited my sister round to discuss the situation.

My Parents refuse to arbitrate this in any way as they don't want to be seen 'taking sides'.
My little sister has started to get nasty with them and it's making my mother quite ill. We both want the same thing, but my sister has no understanding of the time scale needed to achieve this. I'm throwing what money I can in to the joint account to pay it off ASAP, but this isn't good enough either.
I feel that my Sister's boyfriend is the driving force behind all this nastiness and urgency.

I'm at my wits end! It's tearing my family apart!
What 'legal action' can my sister take?
What is my best course of action?
Do I need to take legal advice myself?

Jenniefour

Your sister could force a sale - but this will cost her a lot of money, and she won't have a reason to do that if the property is on the market.

Why not get a local estate agent around (two or three better) and sell? Hopefully you're not in negative equity. Your sister will just have to wait.

TheBookWorm

Do you know roughly how much forcing me to sell would cost her?
The house needs a bit of cosmetic work to get a better sale price. I've just had to fork out to get the entire roof repaired. There is a lot of damp damage in one room and I desperately need a new bathroom. The house isn't in the best of areas, and the house next door is a former crack den (wasn't when we bought it!)!
The landlord next is slowly repairing the damage to next door.
Is there any advantage to me putting the house up for sale but making my house 'unappealing'? To stall for time until I'm able to afford the refurb?

csgohan4

Sadly another thread for not mixing money and family.


One option is to sell the house asap, whether your sister can't wait or not, houses don't sell the minute you put it for sell, she needs to be realistic, even after offer, it can take 3+ months for completion.

Jenniefour

TheBookWorm wrote: »

Do you know roughly how much forcing me to sell would cost her?

No, but it's certainly not hundreds. A lot more. You could call a solicitor and ask, or google it.


The house needs a bit of cosmetic work to get a better sale price. I've just had to fork out to get the entire roof repaired. There is a lot of damp damage in one room and I desperately need a new bathroom. The house isn't in the best of areas, and the house next door is a former crack den (wasn't when we bought it!)!
The landlord next is slowly repairing the damage to next door.
Is there any advantage to me putting the house up for sale but making my house 'unappealing'? To stall for time until I'm able to afford the refurb?

I wouldn't recommend making your house unappealing - that might affect the asking price and there's always someone around who will see past the unappealing and buy it anyway.

Get an estate agent in first, before you do anything further. You need to know what your starting point is, and you could ask the agent if he/she thinks it's worthwhile doing any further work. Because you may not recoup money spent on refurbishing the bathroom. But you probably need to get the damp problem sorted out - or maybe that's done now the roof is fixed and only needs time to dry out.

Pixie5740

It sounds as though there have been rights and wrongs on both sides and this should all have been sorted out sooner. What sort of legal action do you believe you can take against your sister? Legally she hasn't done anything wrong thus far from what you've told us. If your sister has to take you to court to force the sale because you've been obstructive then the judge can award her costs to you. However, it doesn't happen overnight so you have some time to get your ducks in a row.

If you are/were struggling financially have you considered taking in a lodger as I assume the property has at least 2 bedrooms if you used to live with your sister there? That would help you in the short term.

If you do want to sell the property and you have limited funds for improvements then focus your money on sorting out the damp. Cosmetic improvements might get you more for the property but you won't get enough extra back to cover the costs of doing the work in the first place. A tatty, old bathroom won't put people off as much as the stench of damp.

Jenniefour

Pixie, I'm reading that it's OP's sister who's threatening legal action, because sister wants her name off the mortgage.

Pixie5740

At the end of the OP it asks what legal action can be taken against the sister.

ViolaLass

Pixie5740 wrote: »

At the end of the OP it asks what legal action can be taken against the sister.

It doesn't. Read it again, you've amalgamated two sentences.

Pixie5740

I did, didn’t I.

The rest of my advice still stands though.