Help please re friend splitting with partner!

liss90

Hi there,
I hope I am posting on the relevant forum and apologise if not.
I wonder if anyone has any knowledge regarding a friends situation. It is a bit of a long one so apologies again.
A very dear friend of mine is splitting with her partner. They are not married and they bought a house together last october. She has two children, one from a previous relationship and one with him (born in January 2005)
They would be on equal salaries but because she has been on maternity leave and only gone back to work part-time she is now on less money.
Anyway the upshot is that they are splitting up and the house is worth less now than it was last October so therefore they can not sell.
She is going to leave with her two children and rent. Her partner will stay in the house. This is because she would not be able to pay the mortgage on her own salary. The plan is that he would then rent out a room to a lodger. They are planning to go to a solicitor this friday and have some sort of letter drawn up saying that she is being taken off the mortgage but is still entitled to a share of the sale proceeds.
Does this sound right - or could she lose everything. The reason that they are splitting up is because he has not been kind to her first child from a previous relationship.
Can anyone tell me if this sounds o.k as I would hate to see her lose everything. They only got the mortgage because of her credit history and the fact that she had record of paying rent.
Again apologies for this being such a long one!
Liss.

dwsjarcmcd

Always a really difficult situation, but my thoughts on it are, firstly not to get taken off the mortgage, I am not sure that the lender would allow this anyway. Also the solicitor will definately advise her to stay in the house, which she should heed.
If I was your friend, I think I would look at it the other way. Firstly, she should get financial support from her partner for their child and for that matter, from her first child's father, in addition, I would be amazed if she was not entitled to working tax credit, which can make a big difference, as well as other benefits. I think she only needs to work 16 hours per week to qualify
Paying rent is unlikley to save her money, so she is probably not be better off this way. Why doesn't her partner leave, support his child and she takes in a lodger, to make up the difference. This is much better for the kids, which must be everyone's priority and it would certainly be any courts. She should always remember that. The law quite rightly will do whats best for the kids.
Main advice would be just what she is doing, go and see the solicitor. Good luck to her

martinpike

dwsjarcmcd wrote:

Why doesn't her partner leave, support his child and she takes in a lodger, to make up the difference.

It certainly makes much more sense, although I'm not sure about the lodger thing. Not many lodgers want babies and young kids in the house, and your friend would have to be very careful about who she lets to.