Selling my share of a house

Pigface_2

Hello,

I am living in a house with a joint mortgage between me and a friend, we have agreed that he will stay in the house and buy my share, we have agreed after having the house valued three times on a fair price to offer for my share and it is satisfactory.
However, my friend wants me to pay my one percent share of the estate agents 2 percent fee on selling plus my share of estimated solicitors fees plus my share of HIP, this comes to a total of 2200 pounds.
The problem is that he does not plan on selling the house at all and is going to continue to live here but claims I should still pay these fees as thats what I would have to pay if we did sell the house completely.

Is this accepteable for him to expect me to pay these costs when the house isnt actually going to be sold and there arent actually any fees at all due to this, or should I refuse to pay these fees on the basis that until he sells the house which he has made clear he isnt going to, these fees dont exist?

Please help if you can, this is the only gripe I have with finalizing the details.

Many thanks.

churchrat

hi
I think it is fair to ask you to pay. If you were selling together then you would have to share the fees. One day I would think he will sell the house and the fees would have to be paid then and you would have sold your half of the house without having to pay any fees at all. If you wanted to avoid paying up front perhaps you could come to an agreement where you pay half the selling fees when he finally does sell, although I think this would be hard to organise and cost you more in the long run.

Pigface_2

Yes I agree it would be too difficult to arrange to pay half the fees in 5 ... 10... 20 years etc, I suspect he will stay here for life now but then again its not certain either way, it was a puzzler but I guess if I were in his shoes I would plan for future sale and ask for half the fees before hand.
I have asked a few friends and they are divided between "hes being cheeky" to "yes thats fair" so I thought I would ask here, thank you for the reply, I think I shant argue about the fees and just agree to my share.

Numbnutz_2

He's taking you for a ride imo. He expects you to pay half of pretend HIP and estate agents fees ? That's ridiculous. Maybe agreeing to split the conveyancing costs is fair enough but anymore seems crazy.

silvercar

He is being cheeky!

If he wants you to pay half then you need to agree to sell up. He will then run the risk of not getting the agreed price and having to settle for less.

If he sells in 10 years time, is he going to give you half the difference in value between the price he gets and the price you have agreed?

I'll get a take away pizza tonight and expect my other half to pay half the cost of what it would have cost if we had gone to a restaurant. After all, he is eating the same food and I do the washing up, so what difference?

Pigface_2

Well, the crunch is that if we actually sold it, its unlikely to fetch the the value we both agreed on for the house, we would probably get 5 grand less easily, so although I could refuse to pay the fees and force a sale, I would probably lose money due to the fact that his offer for my share was based on the maximum house valuation out of four proffesional evaluations........

I have to agree that it sounds like a con, but on the other side of the coin selling the house on the market will take longer and probably yeild less money than accepting the offer he made, and of course I have to add that I want to leave very badly as he is totally impossible to share with, so I think I will let him have this comparatively small victory.

I have just as many people saying its fair as saying its not fair,.... ho hum... thanks for the opinions though, it is much appreciated

chappers

Ask for your half of the SDuty and moving in costs back then as Silvercar says he is the one who is going to benefit from any future rise in value.