Selling house what’s fair? 21 February at 9:09PM in Marriage, relationships & families 31 replies 2.1K views

Andlam

Hi all
my ex wife and i are selling the marital home now the children have all left education and moved out. 

She has lived there and made the mortgage payments with her husband and their child. 

She’s not paid the mortgage for the last 6 months and has told me she doesn’t plan on making anymore payments now it’s up for sale. It could take 5/6 months or more to sell and the anticipated arrears will be in the region of £12-14000
im not in a position to cover this and to be fair she is living there so really should be paying it. 

Once the house is sold would it be fair to assume she pays the arrears as it’s her cost for living there? 

I’ve already agreed to take a lesser proportion of the sale proceeds to account for her making the payments up until late. 

I’ve already when we split given her all the contents of the house and I paid all the joint debts. 

Thanks! 

Lavendyr

You say ex-wife - have you already divorced? And if so did you have a consent order signed and in place - and if so, what does that say?

tacpot12

If she is still living in the house, it would be fair to assume that she should pay the arrears from her portion of the proceeds. She can't assume that she can live somewhere and not pay rent or a mortgage if she doesn't own it outright.

theoretica

I think it is more complicated than that - if she moved out now would the house get sold any faster/would you move in or benefit in any way or just need to care for an empty house?  How significantly less is the proportion of the proceeds you are taking/how long has she been paying the mortgage for?

Andlam

Lavendyr said:

You say ex-wife - have you already divorced? And if so did you have a consent order signed and in place - and if so, what does that say?

Yes divorced a few years ago, we didn’t do a consent order to be honest neither had any money and we agreed 50:50 

Andlam

tacpot12 said:

If she is still living in the house, it would be fair to assume that she should pay the arrears from her portion of the proceeds. She can't assume that she can live somewhere and not pay rent or a mortgage if she doesn't own it outright.

Thank was my
thought ! 

Andlam

theoretica said:

I think it is more complicated than that - if she moved out now would the house get sold any faster/would you move in or benefit in any way or just need to care for an empty house?  How significantly less is the proportion of the proceeds you are taking/how long has she been paying the mortgage for?

She will stay until it’s sold, she’s lived there 5 years on interest only basis 

Scorpio33

If you were going to split the house equity 50/50, then you are both 50/50 liable for the arrears in my opinion. 

Andlam

Scorpio33 said:

If you were going to split the house equity 50/50, then you are both 50/50 liable for the arrears in my opinion. 

But the person still living in the house has essentially lived there rent and mortgage free then for those months? While the other person has had their own housing costs to pay? 

HelenNoreen

There seems to be several very similar threads!

Andlam

HelenNoreen said:

There seems to be several very similar threads!

Not sure what you mean?