Credit File - Breach of Divorce-Consent Order

KKT2

Hi, Has anyone had experience or advise please. So I divorced ex-H in 2017, agreed he could live in matrimonial  home, and the court ordered that he paid the arrears, and sought to having the mortgage solely in his name. I released my name from the land registry. 
2020 and I'm still on the mortgage, he has not made any effort to re-mortgage the home, and he has a fiancée that works so it is achievable. I am aware that mortgages have gone through the roof, but that has only occurred recently. In the meantime, he continues to pay late, below the agreed amount and I cannot get the credit agencies to remove the connection thus affecting my score and putting me to any disadvantage to any future loans albeit mortgage. The order stating the wordings to the effect that I am not responsible to the mortgage payments means nothing! Credit agency cannot mark up my file as I am unable to provide names or companies? Help?!

GDB2222

Did you have a solicitor for the divorce?

TBagpuss

re you sure that you came off the property deeds? Normally the mortgage lender wouldn't consent to that where the mortgage remained in joint names.

IF he has breached the order then you can usually apply back to court to enforce it which might include seeking a sale of the house in order to clear the mortgage and release you from it, but you would need to get advice from a solicitor and take a copy of the original court order with you. 

The court order doesn't affect the legal relationship you have with the lender, it's about the legal relationship you have with your ex. So the credit agencies won't do anything because you have joint and several liability for the mortgage and you and he are connected as you have a joint mortgage, so they are correctly recording the defaults etc against you as well as him,. That won't change until your name is off the mortgage  

KKT2

GDB2222 said:

Did you have a solicitor for the divorce?

No, I did not, I did it all myself

KKT2

Thanks
I am aware of the implications about the credit file that's why I was asking just to see if there was any other way than having to go back to court 
At the 2nd Court appearance Court forced me to do the transfer of deeds, he was the applicant. The Judge did stipulate that the ex was to his best endeavours re-mortgage the home. Judge was male and old, probably needed to just go home so he felt was enough?! 

I just know if I to go back to court (when I know which form to use) He will use the current market interest rates as a reason for a further delay.. he's very good at manipulating people, and unfortunately my RBF (resting !!!!!! face) does not go down well with these old fossil judges!!

Does anyone know which form I would need as the responder?  As it looks like going back to court is my only option

gazfocus

Have you spoke to your ex about the situation? The chances are if he is paying the mortgage late/below the contractual payments to the point it’s affecting your credit rating, it’s likely affected his credit rating too. If that’s the case, he would probably struggle to remortgage the house due to poor credit rating and if he can’t remortgage the house he won’t be able to get your name off the current mortgage unfortunately. 

Your best option seems to be to force the sale of the house through the court, though he could potentially make that difficult too. 

tightauldgit

KKT2 said:

Hi, Has anyone had experience or advise please. So I divorced ex-H in 2017, agreed he could live in matrimonial  home, and the court ordered that he paid the arrears, and sought to having the mortgage solely in his name. I released my name from the land registry. 
2020 and I'm still on the mortgage, he has not made any effort to re-mortgage the home, and he has a fiancée that works so it is achievable. I am aware that mortgages have gone through the roof, but that has only occurred recently. In the meantime, he continues to pay late, below the agreed amount and I cannot get the credit agencies to remove the connection thus affecting my score and putting me to any disadvantage to any future loans albeit mortgage. The order stating the wordings to the effect that I am not responsible to the mortgage payments means nothing! Credit agency cannot mark up my file as I am unable to provide names or companies? Help?!

I've been on the other side of a similar order and the court will have instructed your ex to make best endeavours to release you from the mortgage. If that's not achievable then there isn't really anything you can do - his fiancee and her earnings are irrelevant. The court has no jurisdiction over his fiancee. 

So at this stage all you can really do is apply to the court for an enforcement order but if he can provide evidence that he's not in a financial position to get a mortgage in his sole name on the property then the court can't force him to do something that isn't possible. 

Beyond that, you could try to force a sale but I think that would be difficult unless you could show a significant impact on yourself. I'm not sure if an impact on your credit score would be seen as sufficient. You can certainly try. 

You won't be able to get the credit agencies to do anything since you are still on the mortgage and liable for the debt. I presume there's some statement that he indemnifies you for any payments on the mortgage but that doesn't have any effect on the lender. 

Putting the past to one side though what do you actually want to happen now? Is he capable of getting the mortgage in his sole name given the current financials - if he can't then what do you want him to do? Presumably there was a reason he stayed in the house and you received some compensation for your share of the property? Have circumstances changed?

If things are amicable with him it might be worth having a conversation with him about what his plans are. If not then I think your options are a) live with it or b) go to court, but as you said he will probably just say that a mortgage is currently unaffordable. In which case there is no breach of the order and nothing to enforce. It's just the outcome of the order that you agreed to. 

With regards the form - it's an application for an enforcement order. So you would become the applicant. I believe its form D11. Before doing so you would normally be expected to have written to your ex pointing out that you consider him in breach and asking that he rectify it.  

propertyrental

KKT2 said:

GDB2222 said:

Did you have a solicitor for the divorce?

No, I did not, I did it all myself

and I'm afraid therein lies the problem. I'm sure you saved some money at the time (and this is, after all, a moneysaving site), but in the long term it was probably short-sighted.

Don't make the same mistake again.

tightauldgit

propertyrental said:

KKT2 said:

GDB2222 said:

Did you have a solicitor for the divorce?

No, I did not, I did it all myself

and I'm afraid therein lies the problem. I'm sure you saved some money at the time (and this is, after all, a moneysaving site), but in the long term it was probably short-sighted.

Don't make the same mistake again.

A lawyer may well have reached the same outcome - it's a fairly standard clause that one party has to make best endeavours to remove the other from the mortgage. The issue is that you can't force a bank to accept someone for a mortgage. 

TBagpuss

tightauldgit said:

propertyrental said:

KKT2 said:

GDB2222 said:

Did you have a solicitor for the divorce?

No, I did not, I did it all myself

and I'm afraid therein lies the problem. I'm sure you saved some money at the time (and this is, after all, a moneysaving site), but in the long term it was probably short-sighted.

Don't make the same mistake again.

A lawyer may well have reached the same outcome - it's a fairly standard clause that one party has to make best endeavours to remove the other from the mortgage. The issue is that you can't force a bank to accept someone for a mortgage. 

Possibly, but dependent on circumstances -it' snot uncommon to have a deadline that expressly states the house will be sold if they haven't been able to do so within a set length of time, and unless they are caring for minor children and the intent is to ensure that the children are housed, that deadline would usually be fairly short .

That doesn't help OP, however, if the order says that he is responsible for mortgage payments then his underpaying and allowing arrears to build up may give a stronger argument and he can also be required by the court to show what steps he has take to release her - normally this would include looking for a new mortgage with a different lender and/or at a higher interest rate, and if he has failed to do that in a timely way then she may be able to ague that he failed to used best endeavors and that his inability to get a new mortgage now is therefore self-inflicted 

tightauldgit

TBagpuss said:

tightauldgit said:

propertyrental said:

KKT2 said:

GDB2222 said:

Did you have a solicitor for the divorce?

No, I did not, I did it all myself

and I'm afraid therein lies the problem. I'm sure you saved some money at the time (and this is, after all, a moneysaving site), but in the long term it was probably short-sighted.

Don't make the same mistake again.

A lawyer may well have reached the same outcome - it's a fairly standard clause that one party has to make best endeavours to remove the other from the mortgage. The issue is that you can't force a bank to accept someone for a mortgage. 

Possibly, but dependent on circumstances -it' snot uncommon to have a deadline that expressly states the house will be sold if they haven't been able to do so within a set length of time, and unless they are caring for minor children and the intent is to ensure that the children are housed, that deadline would usually be fairly short .

That doesn't help OP, however, if the order says that he is responsible for mortgage payments then his underpaying and allowing arrears to build up may give a stronger argument and he can also be required by the court to show what steps he has take to release her - normally this would include looking for a new mortgage with a different lender and/or at a higher interest rate, and if he has failed to do that in a timely way then she may be able to ague that he failed to used best endeavors and that his inability to get a new mortgage now is therefore self-inflicted 

I'd argue it's completely unreasonable to try to force a house sale when there's no financial impact to the other party. Different if they are waiting for a payment of a settlement or whatever but in this case they've already been paid their share of the equity and, unless they are looking for a new mortgage themself, there's no impact to them on remaining on the mortgage provided they are properly indemnified for any costs. 

I agree that allowing arrears to build up is less than ideal but even in the case the house was repossessed the OP would not stand to lose anything other than an impact on the credit file - and to my mind I'm not sure that's sufficient. 

Of course there's lots of details we don't know here but I just feel like kicking someone out of their house because they've underpaid the mortgage a bit would be a bit harsh. 

It's not always the easiest thing in the world to get lenders to provide evidence of the efforts that you've made - if you approach them and they just say 'there's no point even applying you wont be approved' then there isn't much paperwork that they will provide.