Buying out my ex - disagreeing over Declaration of Trust

getmore4less

Exodi wrote: »

I remember discussing the premises for the DoT with the solicitor in quite some depth. They had repeatedly asked throughout that it wasn't too complicated as you need someone to clearly interpret it as intended further down the line.

If I've understood your post correctly, I think attempting to have pages and pages of calculations that express the inflation co-efficient at any given time is not pragmatic and begging for misinterpretation down the line.

Generally, people are quite happy to 'invest' money in bricks and mortar as it's historically given them a good return of which is already technically linked to inflation. I think rewarding someone that put in a higher deposit with the lions share of increases in house value AND making it so their money has also, in effect, double dipped and been stored in a good savings account is a bit over the top.

No need for pages when simple maths can be used.

What most don't get is servicing a debt is the same as paying cash it buys the same share.

The solution options are very simple once you separate the debt from the owneship at the start.

Examples(there are others)
1. Equity based

The deposit buys a share and the debts buy a share.
You can split the debt how you want to determine the shares owned at the start.
The ownership remains constant.
You then pay off your shares of the debt which is easy to track independently of the ownership.

You can deal with maintenance costs simply as well by splitting them on the ownership %

2.Another popular option is to own 50:50 and have all costs shared 50:50.

The one that puts the bigger deposit lends the other 1/2 the extra deposit and gets it back as a seperate ongoing debt or on the sale.
The get your deposit back method.


See one of Tom's post for a sample DOT to deal with the first case.

tryingtobemoresavvy

Tom99 wrote: »

Do you have anything in writing to support the fact that it was the solicitor who suggested this straight percentage split of the net proceeds which is obviously not the correct way?

Yes, I have the email chain where we supplied relative contributions and the percentages from the total expenditure, then she did all the writing. I supplied this as evidence to the original firm - see below for update.

getmore4less wrote: »

Note to anyone setting up a DOD
Make sure it works for examples by working through some simple ones and test the edge cases

Yes! Let me be a cautionary tale that this might not be as expected.

Now, the update. Original solicitor's firm has not admitted they did anything wrong, but said that the DoT does clearly document relative contributions, as well as intent, and if the wording has been constructed in error, then a court would take these into account and be unlikely to disadvantage the party that had contributed the larger share. I think this is helpful knowledge for anyone in similar situations. But, they did also say why can't you just work it out fairly so it doesn't go to court....I completely agree, but he doesn't want to do that. So, I am still waiting to hear back on my options from both the original solicitor and an independent solicitor.

getmore4less

Might be worth a bit of googling, term like constructive trust and resulting trust.

Soot2006

tryingtobemoresavvy wrote: »

Thank you j2009, that's still really very helpful (even though it's a rubbish situation!). I had to chase the original solicitors for 2 weeks with emails and phone calls to get them to look at it and then they only looked at the figures so I've been a bit stuck trying to figure it out myself. So at least I now know where the problem is, and how I can approach it. I'll speak to the original solicitors on Monday and do as you suggest. It also makes me really sad that my ex knows that he's getting more than he's entitled to, and what the intention was, but is still insisting on it. I guess you never really know what someone is like until something like this happens.

If he has admitted in writing (text, etc) that he understood the INTENT of the original deed and is seeking to get more than his INTENDED share, then make sure you hold on to that!






EDITED to add: apologies for my late, useless response. The tab was open in my browser with less than half the current responses...



GOOD LUCK!