A money one - who is being unreasonable?

I agree with this… Josh needs to hang on to the house to protect his assets. Can you act as guarantor if he can’t take the whole mortgage on himself?

Even if Josh had protected the deposit, the money is gone and therefore Sophie would still walk away owing nothing. It isn’t possible to loan money to secure a mortgage and people saying she owes him money, legally she really doesn’t. If this is your family member and you are able to help him out, I would try to do so but be mindful of protecting yourself as well.

Edit - of course any profit should morally go to Josh. And it would be nice if Sophie could cover the legal fees seeing as she’s insisting on the sale and won’t have lost a bean.

But Sophie doesn't have to give Josh any money.

If they were joint tenants they're both equally entitled to any proceeds from a sale - in this case that's nothing.

If they were tenants in common then Josh is entitled to more of the proceeds - but that's still nothing.

Perhaps morally it would be nice for Sophie to produce 30k from nowhere and hand it over, but that has no legal binding and she likely doesn't have 30k to hand over as a nice thing to do!

If they currently owe 180k on the mortgage and the house is valued at 180k the only person getting any money is the mortgage provider.

If their original mortgage was 180k and the house is valued at 180k then it's possible they may have paid off a few grand - maybe as little as less than 0k total. That will be eaten by the estate agent and solicitor fees. If they paid of 10k they'll be lucky to have 5k of that at the end of this. If they are joint tenants then that means they'll both walk away with 2.5k.

I personally only paid off £4k on my mortgage last year. We don't know how long they've lived in this house. They may have only paid off a similar amount.

@AnnaQuayInTheUk can you answer the questions asked by PPs?

• Have they paid anything off the principal? Surely if the mortgage was for 180K and the value is 189k there should be at least 9k + whatever they have paid down over the last 3 years.
• Can Josh afford to take over the mortgage alone?

If he can afford it himself, then I’d suggest he pay her out proportionately to how much they’ve paid off the principal. E.g. if she’s been paying 40% of the mortgage and they’ve paid 3k off the principal, she gets 1200.

Well once she gives Josh his money back ( id ask for all despot with the deducted decrease )
Then Sophie can get the house sale she wants .

In this scenario 180k is remaining on the mortgage. They can sell for 180k. Leaving £0. £0/2 is still zero. They will both walk away with nothing, and Sophie owes Josh nothing.

Depending on why this house has dropped in value it may be worth hanging onto it longer to see if it could rise in value and putting it out to let in the interim, with both remaining joint owners. Risky, as if it continues to lose value they could end up in no better a position and take forever to sell.

Josh isn't entitled to have Sophie pay him anything - even if they were tenants in common he would only be entitled to more of the proceeds of the sale, and in this case there are no proceeds.

If they were 'tenants in common' and there was equity, Josh would get more out the sale. If they were 'joint tenants' they walk away with the same regardless.

Myself and XHB were joint tenants and got married after we bought the house. We divorced and I bought him out. The fact his inheritance paid the deposit did not come into it. I did not have to return his deposit money.

Let's say my XHBs deposit was 10k for a 100k house.

Let's say we had paid off another 10k whilst living there. So 20k total, owing 80k.

Let's say our house was valued at 110k. So £10k equity (in this situation of course there is no equity).

He felt he deserved 20k to be bought out by me, as I didn't contribute to the deposit.

(110-80 = 30k. Minus 'his' 10k deposit (to be returned to him) = 20k. 20/2 = 10k. 10 + his original 10 = 20.)

In actuality he got 15k.

You go in as a joint tenant, this is the risk you take.

My XH could not afford the mortgage alone, so even though his money provided the deposit he could not have afforded to live there without me. So I feel no guilt.

I think Josh will have to eat this one unfortunately. They won't gain anything from house sell so he "lost" his money due to the market.

Understandable, yes, but I fear that that kind of delicacy is one of the many things Josh will not be able to afford for the foreseeable future.

This.

The bank will have contributed most of it so will be getting their money back and Josh and Sophie will be lucky to get loose change if the value has gone down.

Percentages and fractions only matter if splitting the equity. As there is no equity, it is all pointless. No one will get any money from selling the house as there will be no money. The sale from the house will pay off the mortgage and that's that.

From my piont of view, even with the inheritance, of the 210k, Josh contributed 4/7 [four-sevenths] of the property investment.

Therefore, when it sells, at whatever price, Josh should get four-sevenths of the eventual pool of money.

Too easy!

@AnnaQuayInTheUk Is Sophie expected to take the loss and give Josh an additional $30k so he doesn’t lose his money? Because even if that money was ring fenced he wouldn’t get it back if there was a loss?

If she digs her heels in to sell the house, then she is liable for half the loss incurred.

If they've only had their mortgage for 3 years they will be paying front-loaded interest. With the value of the house decreasing by so much, there can't be any equity. Unless they've been overpaying by thousands each month, which you haven't alluded to. Sophie is entitled to nothing.

I don't get some of the previous comments. I think some PPs must think that they've paid off their mortgage in 3 years?

In this instance, he's paid 30k deposit and it looks like there was no agreement. The house has lost money to the tune of 30k, yes?

The only answer here is that Josh buys her out - there is literally no equity and so offers zero. So Josh is just taking Sophie off the mortgage and going his own way surely?

Am I missing something?

It would be interesting to know more on the day to day. Who paid the bills, the groceries, holidays, who did the housework, did they buy a car together etc. if all paid for by Josh including the mortgage, then I think he should get it all.

He should have had it in writing what would happen if they split. I would rent the house out until they can get some of the money back.

Sophie could just leave and forget it really, she paid towards the place but less than if she was renting. It does seem mad to lose money on it. Is the market that shite, or is there something about the house? As pp said he could take on a lodger and wait till he at least breaks even on the sale?

Morally Josh should get his deposit back.

When I bought a house with my ex, he put a much larger amount into the deposit than I did, because he had more savings. No kids involved. When we split up and sold the house, I could have taken 50%. But I didn’t because that wouldn’t have been fair. We each took out what we’d put in, then split the rest between us equally.

If the house had appreciated by £30k I assume she’d expect half of the gain upon sale?

So she also foots the loss at 50%

I think he should get back his £30,000 and then whatever is left is split between them

Wow Sophie moves on quickly! You would think she might be a bit more cautious about jumping straight into a property purchase with a partner now, having experienced that things don’t always work out.