House owned prior to marriage

Jacksonmerc

I am currently going through divorce proceedings, decri nisi was granted and the absolute can be requested Christmas day. I have today received a letter from the land registry b94 stating that my ex wife has an interest on the property in which I am living. We were only living together as husband and wife for 6 weeks until she left. We were only living together for 8 months in total. We each have children but not children together. The house was bought ten years before we met and is currently mortgaged. She has not contributed towards the mortgage, and it has never been in her name. Could she still claim?

unholyangel

You mention the decrees but not whether there has been any agreement or order discussed to end the financial side of things. Have you done any of that yet?

Who paid the mortgage if there was one and who paid for maintenance/upkeep or any improvements to the property?

Jacksonmerc

There is no current order or agreement.

The mortgage is and always has been in my sole name for 10 years prior to marriage. She has not contributed, it also states in her personal bank account statement that her pip and esa were paid to her sole name, but all bills and maintenance came from the joint account which she cleaned up before she left leaving £2k overdrawn which I have been solely maintaining

Jacksonmerc

I understand that the first step is Mediation, but the question is : is it likely that the ex wife has any chance of a claim against the property

onomatopoeia99

Length of relationship?
Length of marriage?


Others will have other questions, no doubt, but those two are relevant to your question.

Jacksonmerc

She moved in Oct 2016, married April 2017, she went into hospital about 5 weeks after the wedding and she never came back home. The official break up date is 30th June 2017. Length of relationship was about 13 months in total.

Yes - quick to marry but my head was somewhere else just 18 months after my previous wife died. She suffered a short battle of cancer and died days after being diagnosed. Weeks before we lost a New born baby

You might say that my wife of whom I am divorcing took advantage of my vulnerability.

tacpot12

I'm afraid you will need a solicitor to sort this out for you. Your wife can certainly make a claim, and if this goes to court, the court will probably award her something, even though the marriage was very short. The court is likely to take the period you were living together into account. They will also take into account your respecitive abilities to earn money in future. The court order will also consider your pension(s). The duration of your marriage should be taken into account in all aspect of the financial settlement.

I would suggest that you try to come to an agreement on what financial arrangement you want with your wife before seeing the solicitor, so that you are clear that all you want the solicitor to do is make the agreement legal. You can use the calculator below to help with this:

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/divorce-and-money-calculator

You may be able to use a mutual friend to act as as unpaid mediator.

In your situation, you should try to obtain a clean break order so that your wife has no further claim on you.

Sorry you are having to deal with this ahead of Christmas.

pphillips

Jacksonmerc wrote: »

She moved in Oct 2016, married April 2017, she went into hospital about 5 weeks after the wedding and she never came back home. The official break up date is 30th June 2017. Length of relationship was about 13 months in total.

Yes - quick to marry but my head was somewhere else just 18 months after my previous wife died. She suffered a short battle of cancer and died days after being diagnosed. Weeks before we lost a New born baby

You might say that my wife of whom I am divorcing took advantage of my vulnerability.

Your marriage was very short and your wife was living in the house for such a short period of time that any matrimonial property claim is likely to be viewed by the court as too small to be worth considering.

Seanymph

Do not get the nisi until you have a financial order in place.

I am not currently up to date enough to advise, but know that my solicitor said this to me again and again............. get the money sorted before you grant the split, otherwise the money is likely to drag on - make it part of the overall package not an afterthought.

Archergirl

What a horrible person she seems to be, it doesn't look like she works and maybe saw you as a soft touch. I do hope you can get this sorted out and go on to have a happy life xx