Division of house equity when I've put more in!

[Woo76]

Looking to see if anyone has had any experience of this and how it panned out. I ended my relationship of 9 years last year ( not married). I put money from my old house into the new property we jointly bought together. Three months after moving in, he told me he couldn't afford the house and had lied to me about debts. I then spent the next 7 years paying the majority of the mortgage/ bill/ living/childcare. I had to go full time at work and have even ended up using credit cards as he failed to change/ step up. I tried to talk about the house, division of equity but he refused to move out or talk about it. He then decided to get a solicitor...I didn't want to go legal at all. I have got legal advice but wondered if anyone had gone through this and what the result was. He's going for 50% which is just nowhere near what he's put in. I have two children from a previous relationship that live with me as well as my 6 year old we have together. All payments came from my account, so I can clearly show what he's put in. Im hoping he will mediate but so far his legal team are not answering questions and deflecting everything. His parents have money and are paying his legal fees plus are giving him a sizeable amount of money towards a new property whereas all I have is invested in this house. Any information greatly received. Thanks.

If you bought as joint tenants then it is completely irrelevant what you each actually put in, it is 50% each.

Did you buy as joint tenants or tenants in common?

Where would I find that out? I can't remember

If you can’t remember then you are joint tenants I’d say. For tenants in common you would have had to legally pre-agree who owns what % of the house- you would remember that kind of info and would have had to decide between you and have that formalised when buying via sols.

You can check your title deeds to be sure, but I’d be pretty confident saying you bought as joint tenants if you don’t recall deciding %.

In which case it doesn’t matter who paid what, it’s 50/50

I do have a declaration of trust protecting the money I initially invested. The clause on that also states that going forwards, both parties need to pay equally the mortgage which he hasn't done..

In that case you should definitely get back the initial investment.

I would do a spreadsheet of the mortgage payments to show how much short he has paid compared to you so that can be deducted from equity and present that as evidence that he breached the agreement in the trust deed.

Thank you..its tricky trying to work out the split..all mortgage/ bills came out of my account whereas he transferred money to my account each month, but that wasn't enough to cover everything- how do I work out what part of what he gave me goes on the mortgage?

Make a list of all the bills and then his contribution and work out a percentage of the total that he paid