HELP - Is my partner scr*wing me out of money??

dnatasha

Me and my ex bought a house for £245,000. His parents kindly put a big £40,000 deposit down for us, so neither of us put money down for the deposit. When we did the deeds he put it down as 50/50 Joint Tenancy ownership. We fortunately never had to pay towards the mortgage either as another property he owned, the rent money paid our mortgage. The only contribution we made was that he paid £180 council tax and I paid £140 on bills. We both put savings into a joint account which we used to do up the house over the last 2 years (as we bought it to do it up). Now that we have split up (2 and half years later) he wants to buy me out and said that I am only entitled to the savings that I put away over the last 2 and half years because I only paid the bills, he doesn't think I should I get anymore as bills aren't contributing to the mortgage.


I have made it clear that I do not want the equity from the deposit from his parents however as I have contributed towards the bills and paying towards doing the house up, that if the house has gone up in value from what we initially paid for it that I am entitled to half or even quarter of that.


Is that right or am I in the wrong to ask for that??


Please someone advice

Pixie5740

dnatasha wrote: »

Me and my ex bought a house for £245,000. His parents kindly put a big £40,000 deposit down for us, so neither of us put money down for the deposit. When we did the deeds he put it down as 50/50 Joint Tenancy ownership. We fortunately never had to pay towards the mortgage either as another property he owned, the rent money paid our mortgage. The only contribution we made was that he paid £180 council tax and I paid £140 on bills. We both put savings into a joint account which we used to do up the house over the last 2 years (as we bought it to do it up). Now that we have split up (2 and half years later) he wants to buy me out and said that I am only entitled to the savings that I put away over the last 2 and half years because I only paid the bills, he doesn't think I should I get anymore as bills aren't contributing to the mortgage.


I have made it clear that I do not want the equity from the deposit from his parents however as I have contributed towards the bills and paying towards doing the house up, that if the house has gone up in value from what we initially paid for it that I am entitled to half or even quarter of that.


Is that right or am I in the wrong to ask for that??


Please someone advice

You either own the property as Tenants in Common with a 50/50 split or as Joint Tenants where you each own 100%, so which is it?

Is there a Declaration of Trust drawn up to say what would happen in the event of a relationship breakdown?

dnatasha

I will check my paper documents tonight when I collect my stuff as I'm obviously getting myself confused.


And no there was no Declaration of Trust drawn up to say what would happen in the event of a relationship breakdown

Money_maker

So his rent money from another property paid the mortgage? I agree with him then. Perhaps you owe him rent...

Cheeky_Monkey

I agree with him!

His parents paid the deposit

He paid the mortgage and Council Tax

You just paid the bills

Where else could you have lived for a paltry £140 a month?

Pixie5740

dnatasha wrote: »

I will check my paper documents tonight when I collect my stuff as I'm obviously getting myself confused.


And no there was no Declaration of Trust drawn up to say what would happen in the event of a relationship breakdown

Well in the absence of a DoT and if you own the property either as Tenants in Common (50/50) or as Joint Tenants then you are legally entitled to half the equity. You are however free to negotiate whatever split you like between you. If you can't agree then you could always go to court and let the judge decide.

dnatasha

I understand that I haven't paid directly into the mortgage however we have both paid into doing the house up which will in no doubt will have gone up in value from when we first purchased it

sal_III

Legally you are most likely to lose, depending on how the mortgage payments were being routed through bank account it should be fairly easy for your ex to prove he was making all of the mortgage payments. Seems like he has already offered to buy you out of your share put into renovations, which you are entitled to.

Morally I don't understand how you expect to have a claim on share of the equity other than the renovation investment, if you haven't contributed financially towards neither the deposit, nor the mortgage payments.

need_an_answer

How much savings did you put into the property for the renovation work?

How much has the property value gone up?

How much equity will there be to split once selling fees etc are paid?

Don't assume that just because you have done cosmetic refurbishment that the property price will have increased substantially or even beyond what money you actually spent on the refurb


At that point you then need to decide if the amount left is worth facing further costs to challenge it .

dnatasha

Yes sorry if I've confused here but I do NOT want a share of the equity. All I was querying was whether I am entitled to a share of the money made from renovating the house since we purchased it.

westernpromise

The cost of ownership has been the mortgage (he paid using rental income), plus the running costs (you paid £140 bills, he paid £180 CT), plus the doing-up (say you paid half each).

I'm guessing the mortgage would have been about £950 a month (£205k at 3% over 25 years) so his input has been £950 + £180 for 30 months + 1/2 the do up fund. Yours has been £140 for 30 months + 1/2 the do up fund.

In total then he's put in £34,000 plus half the fund, and you've put in £4,000 plus half the fund. How much was the fund? Knowing that, one can work out what proportion of the costs each of you paid which tells you what percentage of the price rise you each should get.