Ex took on mortgage after divorce, now not paying it, my name still on, and debt increasing.....?

[abitpuzzled]

Long title sorry! I am confused and after a bit of advice because this just seems wrong. Divorced last year, I had moved out of the jointlyowned house with DC. Ex still lives there. As part of the court order he took over the mortgage payments.

House is to be sold, mortgage paid off and remaining balance split between us. However, since the court date, it looks like regular payments have stopped. Initially when I queried this I was told there was a credit on the account due to some sort of overpayments on fixed rate mortgage.

As ex was out of work at the time, I assumed it was some sort of mortgage holiday, credit to be used to make monthly payments.

However, I have just got the annual summary of the mortgage. Payments haven't been made, apparently there is still a credit balance, but the overall debt has also risen by a few £1000.

I am worried that this will mean that there is less money to be divided between us when the property eventually sells, because the mortgage will be taking a larger part of the proceeds.

The mortgage company haven't been able to explain why the balance is increasing but have told me there has been no advance made against the mortgage etc.

Is there any way that I can prevent the debt increasing further. Basically at the moment it feels like ex has stopped payments (possibly around a credit I knew nothing about but which must have accumulated while we were together/cohabiting as no lump sum has been paid in). But if the final sum after sale is reduced, it also feels like I am paying for him to be living there, while he lives there basically rent free. I didn't necessarily expect the mortgage to decrease given he was not working, but never thought it would increase!

[Xenia]

So he has breached the court order? Have you asked him about that?

Does the court order say which of you markets the house and how you decide on the asking price as one solution is that you take that over and get it sold ASAP so there is not a very long period of bigger and bigger debt.

Ask the mortgage company for all the correspondence about the mortgage in the last 3 years under the data protection act,. Surely if there was a credit it would all be carefully set out on the annual statement?

Is it some kind of off set mortgage?

[abitpuzzled]

We are no direct contact. The court order states house marketing to be decided jointly. In practice he uninstructed the original estate agents without consulting me/the soliticors I had and put it on with another agency.

I went into the agency to ask them how they were able to market a property I jointly owned, without contacting me at all. He had not given them any contact details etc for me. They now update me on viewings/feedback etc. It has been on the market for well over a year now.

Statements show no signs of a credit. The mortgage was in 3 or 4 parts (was added to over the years we were together). Majority was repayment, and I think fixed rate. One part was interest only. I was thinking that the fixed rate (it was higher rate than the then variable) might have produced some kind of overpayment, given that it was higher than the standard repayment rate at the time.

From the latest statement it looks like it has been divided into 8 sections now but the total amounts still basically correspond to the original 4. One the phone to them they said that nothing new had been added to the mortgage in the last couple of years.

During the divorce I was asking the solicitor I had if we could get an order of sale (ex initially "lost" us a potential sale) but the general attitude was that we can't make buyers appear, so as long as it is being marketed and presentable, I felt that was the way to go.

[abitpuzzled]

Is it definitely a breach of the court order? Although he isn't making the monthly payments (it looks like he has paid 2 payments in the last 7 months, which total one typical monthly payment.

[RedHelenB]

Did you say that he is now not working? Was he working when it was ordered for him to pay the monthly mortgage|? Personally, I would push on with the sale asap before credit scores start getting damaged.

[Xenia]

I haven't seen the court order so don't know if he has breached it but if ordered him to pay the mortgage when due and he hasn't then it would seem to be breached. If instead he has paid what was due then he hasn't. Can you see each month what he is paying and what not and how the balance changes month by month?

Sometimes divorce orders will be quite specific about a house sale as it can be such a minefield with one putting on a silly high price or putting off every buyer when they come round. if it hasn't sold for a year the price is probably wrong. Has someone looked at nethouseprices.com to see what houses have actually sold at on the same road recently to see if the price is realistic? Might you both consider an auction sale if it is not selling?

[abitpuzzled]

It was initially overpriced, we dropped it quite quickly. Since then the market dropped but ex refused to reduce the price further, despite both me and the original estate agents suggesting that he did so. Price was reduced very slightly with his new agents, and then reduced very slightly again.

I would be willing to go to auction (I just want it all dealt with and done!) and it is over a year ago that I was mentioning this/order of sale etc to my solicitor. Ex was very reluctant to reduce price. We had one offer which fell slightly short of his "minimum".. I offered to pay him the difference so he wouldn't lose out financially and we wouldn't lose a vendor. That was refused.

It is a bit of a "unique" property. Not much similar. I would say that some of the rooms are a bit small and location is a bit "you either love it or hate it". House prices in the area seem to have levelled out, so I'm not sure how much further to drop, if at all. (I would, suspect ex wouldn't).

From the 8 sections of the mortgage, they are all either repayment or interest only. It looks like 3 parts have had 2 payments each since we went to court. The other 5 parts have nothing.

Court order says "...he will be responsible for discharging the mortgage and other outgoings in respect of the former matrimonial home and to indemnify the Petitioner in respect of the same..." I don't know if this means that he can do what he likes because the mortgage will be paid when house sells, or whether it means he should carry on paying it monthly/regularly.....!

He was made redundant around the time that we initially split up. Has been living off redundancy pay ever since.

[abitpuzzled]

** should have said so that we wouldn't lose a buyer!

[Xenia]

I interpret that to mean he has to pay month by month the mortgage payments due and not let you go into arrears. I cannot work out from the above if the mortgage company is saying he is not paying and is in arrears or not presumab ly he must be not paying if the debt is growing. In that case you need to write to him formally saying that unless he makes up the diference now within say 7 days you will apply to the court to enforce the court order - require him to make the payments month by month and also to vary it so that more detail is included about the price and how the property is marketed.

As things stand he might live there paying nothing for 3 years rent free and then it may be sold although indemnify does mean that when it is sold the lack of interest he has not paid and the lack of capital repayments he has avoided all come off his half and you get more than 50/50 to take account of that. If he has very little money then the sooner it is sold the better.

I think a lot of divorce lawyers really do not oput enough detail in about who shows people round, what the price is, what happens if you cannot agree on a price, having a back stop date after which it goes to auction. yet again and again they have similar problems you have had so why do they not include all the detail in these orders first time round? (I am noto a divorce lawyer and I suppose there may be a good reason for it).

[abitpuzzled]

Thank you, I can't work out about possible arrears either.. obviously the 5 subsections that haven't had payments and are building up interest/balances give an initial appearance of late/no payments. I need them to explain the mysterious-not-on-any-paperwork credit (and why the overall debt has risen despite this!).

I can't believe he would intentionally build up bad credit for himself but am aware that if he did so knowing it would be adversely affecting me too then can see a possible motive (am prepared for it to happen and part of me expects it, given previous behaviour/threats etc).

I think I need to take your advice back to my solicitor once I get a decent explanation from the mortgage company, thank you again.

[Xenia]

I suppose my point was some lawyers do go into detail about the details of the sale but it seems to be that the client has raise the issue whereas you would think the lawyer ought to be saying in 90% of cases the one not wanting to sell will jeopardise this sale so my advice is that we say both parties to be present or right to be on all viewing or viewings only by the agent, price to be set at XYZ and will be reduced every 2 months by Y and go to auction if not sold by ABC date etc etc.

If the credit is not on any paperwork then it sounds as it if does not exist and he used that as an excuse. Mind you if has no job he probably simply cannot pay in which case perhaps he ought to be sleeping on his mother's floor and you rent the place out for 6 months and split the rent by two.