trying to evict adult stepchild

[DionneEz]

This is my dilemma. The property is a marital home with my husband from whom I am now separated.

Before the separation, his adult son (21) was living with us. My husband has now left the property but insists that his adult son remain with me. This has been nearly 2 years.

At first I was accommodating, as my husband still pays half the mortgage, I pay all of the bills.

The stepson living here was not an issue at first, but now I can no longer cope as he basically stays indoors on his phone all day. The only time he comes out of his room is to collect his Ubereats.

I asked him about getting a job and contributing something financially towards the bills and I was given a story about how he was freelancing from home...and that his pay was intermittent.
However, I see the receipts for his Ubereats orders and they amount to about £20 daily, which is about £500 a month. When he does leave the house, he takes a £7 cab to the station when he can get the bus, which costs £2 or even walk as it is only 10 mins away...so clearly he has funds to splurge but he doesn't feel he has to contribute to the running of the house since his father owns half.

So the scenario is that I have a nearly 22-year-old man 24/7 in my house who refuses to lift a finger to do anything in terms of chores and doesn't contribute financially. I recently had to stop him using my toothpaste and bath soap because I was like you can buy your own surely.
I do go into the office 3 times a week and have errands and stuff to run on weekends but will come back to clean my house as this guy does absolutely nothing. When I was on hols for 3 weeks, he didn't even take the bins out. Yet his father insists that as he owns the house as well., he has every right to dictate who lives there. Is this true?

Anyway, I have given stepson notice even though he is not a tenant. The notice has now passed but he is still here and has no intention of leaving. I know the next step is to change the locks when he leaves which is rare but can his father come and let him in again and will I be breaking any laws if I lock the father out as well? Father doesn't live there and does not pay any bills..just half the mortgage but as the resident homeowner shouldn't my rights surpass his?

Please tell me this is a rhetorical question, and that you don't actually need an explanation of what the big switch on the fusebox does, OP ....

Hopefully she won’t be silly enough to flip that one since it would switch off her fridge and freezer….

If she does this (and I wouldn’t advise it as her ex will use it against her in court), she needs to work out the individual fuses to know which switches to flip.

That's exactly what I did when I bought this house. When both mortgages were out of their fixed period, I remortgaged and only had one.

Put a password on the wifi, which you won't give him until he pays. Turn off the hot water/heating when you aren't in the house. Turn off the power to the upstairs when you go out, if that's where his bedroom is. Or send him a bill for his reasonable share of utilities and add interest every week he doesn't pay it. Where is the man's mother? Could she have a word with him?

Change the WiFi password and turn it off. Often.

Not much point turning it off if she’s locked him out by changing the password is there?

Isn't that normally sorted between decree nisi and decree absolute?

Usually but it doesn’t legally have to be. It’s not a good idea not to - it results in situations like a non resident spouse asking for and getting half the equity in the matrimonial home 10 years after the divorce (for example).

@CandidHedgehog How could he use it against her, given that he doesn’t live in the house and the electricity bill is solely in her name (and paid by her)? She could live by candlelight if she wished to, couldn’t she?!

A lockable fusebox would be a good idea.

@AuntAgathaGregson

I always presumed people did it as a matter of course but I've got 3 friends now who didn't bother. One of whom it's really come back to bite her so I try not to assume these days!

Absolutely no problem there, water might be contentious legally, but the rest no problem.

He will use it to show that while he was acting in good faith by paying a mortgage he didn’t have to pay, she wasn’t in that she was trying to force out his son. He can argue that as he wasn’t getting any ‘benefit’ for the mortgage payments, that should be reflected in the settlement.

Will it work? No idea. Will it cost her a lot of money to argue the point? Most definitely.

If you finalise the divorce who gets your house?

My approach would be to get a decree nisi myself and a concurrent financial order. Decide who gets what. Sell up or stay in property that YOU own solely and then you can evict SS.

No point in saving some £££s on a mortgage if the price is the loss of your wellbeing. I know you feel hard done by what with DV and now this, but sometimes it's for the best to cut the losses and move on independently of these issues that are driving you nuts.

@CandidHedgehog Fair point, but as I say, she could live by candlelight with no WiFi if she wished, that’s her business and she’s under no obligation to provide electricity, etc. for the adult son.

I imagine she’d argue that she was trying to reduce her bills. Same with turning the heating down/off. Lots of ppl are trying to save money atm.

No one is making her husband pay the mortgage, he could stop anytime.

Look, it's quite simple. Her husband isn't paying towards the utility bills and neither is her stepson, so neither of them are entitled to benefit from those utilities.

What she could do is give some advance warning. Either the stepson pays half of all those bills from now on, or he doesn't get to use the electricity, hot water or WiFi anymore. His choice.

@DionneEz

Just out of curiosity, what happened on DSS' 'eviction day'? Did you speak to him and say "You need to be out today by XX o'clock" or did you just let the day go by? If you did tell him to get out what did he say? Did you (or he) inform your STBX that you were evicting him? What was the response?

As far as him 'having' to pay half the mortgage, he really doesn't. There may be consequences of course, but if he doesn't care about that then he may well decide that it's worth it. If you pay 'his share' of the mortgage to keep the house from foreclosure, the bank will be happy and it won't 'ding' his credit. Whether or not it affects the marital settlement or not will be up to the courts.

All of this is to consider what would happen if you did decide to change the locks before seeking legal advice. Is your STBX the type to demand a key? Start being 'difficult' about the financial settlement? Move himself back in? The same goes for cutting the heat, the power, the wifi. These are the things you need to consider before you take any action without legal advice.

I'm in the US so only know the basics of UK law on locking out a co-owner, not about third parties so not going to 'enter the fray', as it were. Other than to say that 'debating' the issue here has no point. You believe what you believe and only a solicitor can tell you whether you are right or wrong.

Hefty legal bill on what basis @Willyoujustbequiet? Sure the ex could seek a court order to get a copy of the new keys but that will cost him money (and time) to sort. It's unlikely he'd bother - his most likely course of action toon is to stop paying the mortgage and insist that op buys him out.

He doesnt need a court order to get the new keys. He could simply arrange a locksmith because its his property.

We have no idea what her ex will do to be fair. If he feels his son has every right to be there given his legal ownership then illegally changing the locks in the absence of court order could prove a costly mistake.

It's far better that the OP sort this in a civilised manner as soon as possible.

No one is OK with this 22 yo man living rent-free and using her electricity.

We are attempting to answer the OP's legal question. OP didn't ask AIBU nor for a handhold, she asked about a point of law.

We aren't taking the man's side. A quick look at my posting history will tell you that I don't side with men.

We are telling you what the law is and you aren't listening.

SS could have a tenancy agreement with his dad...

I have a ye olde fuse box so I’d turn that off and take the master fuse out with me.

Don't do that, unless you fancy coming home to find that your lodger has bridged the contacts with a, dangerous and very much not a fuse, nail.

Not without the consent of the OP he can't.

@selffellatingouroborosofhate Interesting idea. If he does have a tenancy agreement, I wonder whether that would work in the OP's favor legally?

Not informing the co-owner that he's installed a tenant and not coming to any agreement regarding the bills - it could be even better for the OP if he put something about bills in the tenancy agreement, because if his mortgage payments are supposed to cover the tenant's portion of bills, he'll have a lower stake in the house!

Not legally he can’t. People are putting way too much weight on the dad’s house ownership and paying for the mortgage here. So many people just assuming or making things up without stopping to think is that legal? But then when the op says something about getting rid of him the same crowd are going no that’s not legal you can’t!! Both viewpoints are equally rubbish. I’m sure she can get rid it’s just a case of working out how. the son doesn’t own the house, isn’t a tenant, can’t legally get a tenants agreement with his dad, and has no claim on the house nor rights to live there.