Ex-Partner wants 50% of family home - advice needed please

Thrugelmir · 9 July 2018 at 10:10PM

boyzmummy wrote: »

receiving no maintenance as he doesn't work.

Never worked in 12 years?

avacapri · 10 July 2018 at 6:05AM

hi if you are happy with the offer you gave him at the time, offer it again and sit back, he seems like he was unresponsive at the time, i doubt if he will be very proactive now and once he does get advice he will most probably take your offer (be sure you factor in any fees for selling the house)

But i would advise you obtain legal advice - speak to your old firm of solicitors as they will have your file (perhaps a different solicitor in the firm), if you dont want to do that, try the local CAB as they run legal clinics.

Pixie5740 · 10 July 2018 at 6:07AM

boyzmummy wrote: »

Hi, thank you for your comments. I wanted to get this sorted out when he left and had the house valued and offered him 50% of the equity. He would not accept this, he was difficult and take ages to respond to solicitors, letters, prompting my sol to chase, which was mounting up the costs. He would respond eventually stating he wanted to come to the house to meet me with no one else present, not even our children, this is at the point where a solicitor told me to give up, he knew due to his past violence, he couldn’t do that, another was that I would sign an agreement that he never had to pay maintenance for our children.
I don’t want revenge, at the same time I don’t want him to make it impossible for us to live our lives with debts just to pay out a greedy person. He once told me that he would not declare any earnings as he didn’t want to pay child maintenance.
I would be happy to pay him 50% of the equity as when he left, but he wouldn’t accept this. I just wanted to know how I could fight this without all of the legal expenses
Thanks again

Do you have the funds or are you able to get a mortgage solely in your name to buy him out? I'm surprised that your solicitor advised you to give up because if you had persevered you could have had your costs awarded against him to be deducted from his share of the equity for dragging his feet. That's still an option.

saajan_12 · 10 July 2018 at 8:29AM

Few questions:
1) Were you married? If yes, then this should be handled in the divorce.
2) How was the ownership set up - joint tenants? tenants in common? what did the deed of trust say if any?
3) Is there an outstanding mortgage on the property? What was the mortgage outstanding when ex left?
4) What is the current value of the property? What was the value when ex left?
5) What do you want - to sell? to continue living in the property? with / without ex on the mortgage?

Legally ex would need to force a sale through the courts to get his 'share'. This would be long and expensive so he may not bother, but if he does and the court finds against you, you could be liable for some court costs.

So it would be wise to try to come to an agreement. In the absence of a deed of trust stating a different split, it would be assumed to be 50/50 after mortgages etc are paid off. You MAY be able to argue that ex was just a legal owner but you were the sole beneficial owner (if you paid for everything for the house) but this would take a good argument and still a long shot.

boyzmummy · 10 July 2018 at 10:28AM

Hi
I spoke to gingerbread early on and was advised to not pay the mortgage and let the house be reposessed - this was not an option for me.
We were not married but did live together for four years before starting a family.
The house was in joint names but his solicitor changed this to tenancy in common, i did not sign the form, but was advised that it would go through anyway.
He earns on paper £96 pw, according to CSA/maintenance options, (opposed to the £150pd he was earning). For our 4 children the most he has ever paid was £5pw -£1.25 each. There is nothing physically wrong with him.
In the first 7 years after he left i engaged several different law firms, all started off positive, but several thousands of pounds later and one set of barristers fees, I was told that it would cost me £19-£30k to take him to court to sell the property and he could still get 50% with no costs awarded. He is not a nice person and will argue that black is white, for example I had saved the children some money, we were both able to sign on their accounts, he decided that as we didn't need it he would withdraw the £500 from each of their accounts.
There is still part of the mortgage outstanding approximately £30k.
The value when he left was around £160k - now £260K value.
I would prefer to stay here for now with the kids.

He has told my daughter that as she is 18 he wants his money, 50% of the value, I have not received anything from his solicitor yet! Is it possible that I write back to the solicitor myself as I feel that he is only entitled to half the equity at the time of leaving - maintenance for the children.

tacpot12 · 10 July 2018 at 11:07AM

I think you are in a good position if you just dig you heels in - ignore him (do not reply to any letter, text or verbal assault), but do talk to your daughter about what is going on. As a young adult, she needs to see how messy marriage and relationships can be. It will be a good lesson for her.

Let him go to the expense of taking you to court. Once you have to go to court, it will be worth hiring a solicitor to ensure you have the best defence. I would suggest that you should ask the court to take into account the lack of maintanance you have received. £5 per week (£260 per year !!!!!!) is derisory. A figure of £3000 per year would be more reasonable, given that the court is about to award him a lump sum that will allow him to pay the maintenance. You will win reasonableness points in only asking for this small amount.

The court will not award him 50%. Don't tell him this, it will be worth seeing his face in court! At worst, they will award him 50% to the point he left and stopped contributing. At best, they will award him half to that point, less the child maintenance he owes you.

boyzmummy · 10 July 2018 at 12:09PM

Thanks Tacpot, this is good advice and the route I will be following. I just hope that when it gets to court the judge will be a reasonable person. He chose not to see the children much but recently calls them all the time, they are good kids, polite but I have never involved them, although they have been upset by their Dads verbal nonsense in the past. They are older now and will not tolerate his slander. I think his calls are a tactic of his to try and get them on his side, but tbh he is wasting his time, he has let them down way too much for that.

[Deleted User] · 10 July 2018 at 3:17PM

I went through all this with my eldest son and his father. Avoidance of child maintenance (although in the end he did pay it for a year). Heart breaking phone calls between my ex and his son where he'd call me a liar and a thief and never wanted to speak to him again. Awful.

I tried my best to say my ex was hurt and angry and while what he was saying wasn't acceptable, it was coming out of anger.

Then suddenly after about ten years my ex stopped being angry and now has a limited relationship with our son. He'll never win father of the year awards but I'm just glad the anger is gone. Unfortunately he is now very unwell (happened after he started talking to our son, not because of).

Don't use your ex's behaviour to make a point with the kids. That is as bad as what he is doing and just as damaging. I tried to get my son through it as whole as I could. I'm not perfect, there were times I could have scratched his eyes out but I knew letting my kids see that would only damage them.

The ultimate reason I say this is because I am at the end point of this. My father died recently, my parents went through some troubles, both of them played off each other, I didn't really have a sound relationship with my father. And now he's dead I get nightmares every night based on unresolved childhood stuff wondering what I did wrong to make him like that. I thought I had resolved it but obviously not. Now its in my face with packing up his flat etc. Its 40 years later. I wouldn't want anyone to go through this. I've got to go to a funeral with everyone wondering why his daughter has nothing to say about her father, no pleasant memories at all.

boyzmummy · 10 July 2018 at 3:46PM

deannatrois - thank you for your comments and it is sad with what you are going through and have been through.
It is good advice but like I say I have never involved my children in their fathers antics, they have always been my priority and I do not see that I need to say anything to them, they are older now and are capable of forming their own opinions.

stator · 10 July 2018 at 5:51PM

Well, you haven't actually said what you want apart from to 'fight it'.
Do you intend to buy out his share, or do you intend to sell the house and split the money and move somewhere else?
He is certainly entitled to some of the value of the house, but given what you've told us, he won't be entitled to 50% of the value of the house.
If he is serious about wanting to settle matters, then you will definitely need a solicitor and then start negotiating the percentage that he owns.
If you have kept records of all your mortgage payments and the mortgage statements then it should be fairly easy to do some sums and work out a good starting point for negotiations.

I would say, you need to be practical. Forget about everything he said and did back then, previous negotiations failed. Just focus on the now and getting it sorted. Stick to the facts of who paid what, when. Try not to bring emotions in to it.

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Ex-Partner wants 50% of family home - advice needed please

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