ADVICE PLEASE! - reposession proceedings...

tdubz_88 · 8 September 2018 at 10:41PM

Hi there

Please can somebody give some advice on the situation my Dad currently finds himself in...

He has just received a letter from a solicitor letting him know that they have been instructed to start repossession proceedings on the property belonging to his estranged wife “K”. He has been notified because he registered an interest in the property on the Land Registry website last year.

Just for a bit of background...when K’s mum died 7 years ago, K inherited 50% of the property and she took a £60k (50% LTV) mortgage solely in her name to buy her sisters half of the property 6 years ago. I’m not sure how much of the mortgage has been paid off since then but I can tell you that my dad paid every single mortgage payment (and every other payment towards living costs!) for the first 5 years as K gave up work just weeks after the mortgage completed! When he moved out last summer, he paid the mortgage and bills for another couple of months, then K told him not to bother paying anymore as she had everything “under control” although wouldn't give any details, and so he stopped transferring the mortgage money to her account (he needed the money to live elsewhere!). It seems she did not have everything under control... We had our suspicions but she would not have any contact with us so we couldn't confirm either way, now we are left wondering the following:

Once the house has been repossessed, sold at auction and the bank has taken their money to repay the mortgage, arrears and repossessions costs etc, assuming there is money leftover, that will be returned to K? We assume there will be some leftover money despite being a repossession as house prices have increased in the last 7 years and the low mortgage LTV...
- What can we do/what do we need to do (other than already registering an interest on Land Registry) to ensure that whatever money is leftover should be “held on account” by the court/solicitors until a settlement has been agreed between my dad and K?
Has anybody had any experience of this situation before / heard of something like this before? What was the outcome?

She is adamant that my dad will receive nothing because it is her “mums house” and he shouldn’t expect to receive anything “just because you paid the mortgage for a few years”. My dad has been to see a solicitor regarding divorce/his rights to the house and he was told that the bottom line is – they are married and that means he is entitled to 50% of everything. He went to a mediation meeting where he was told the same thing and he even stated that he doesn't want 50% of everything; he just wanted what he’d contributed in mortgage payments over the last 5 years and 50% of the increase in value of the property (and rightly so, since he paid for all materials to renovate the house and carried out those renovations himself (he is a builder)). K didn’t turn up for her mediation meeting so he was advised the only option was to take her to court which “could cost thousands” – thousands that he doesn’t have!!

It just seems too unfair that she should walk away with everything and my dad with nothing given the fact that he paid for everything while they were together and supported her financially when she refused to work (her words: "my half of the house is paid for"!!!). I suppose I would side with my dad but I do think he has been very fair in all of this (especially in saying he doesn't want 50% of everything) but she would rather let her "mums house" be repossessed than sell it, just to prevent my dad from receiving any financial gain... not only is it spiteful, it's incredibly foolish too.

Thank you for reading and I appreciate anybody taking the time to give their advice.