House signed to me in court

[Cos12345]

So long story ex husband and I divorced over seven years ago, house is still in joint names as mortgage company won't take him off. Although I pay all the mortgage and have done for last ten years when we split. In court I was awarded house due to his lying and cheating , he has just told me dd that when I come to sell the house current mortgage will end in five years he is going to make it hell for me.
I have remarried and we intend to stay in house. I'm so worried now anyone experienced this ?

@Cos12345

In five years the current mortgage term ends, so I will have to remortgage or sell

thats what normally happens....

or your mortgage rolls in to a standard variable rate with your current provider. surely though you want to re mortgage asap?

if the court awarded you the house - then did your solicitor change the deeds?

was the decree nice etc all stamped by the court?

as pp states, once the fixe deal ends, you'll go on a variable rate, so how exactly is he going to make your life hell and why is he telling your dd this - poor girl

@ivykaty44 unlikely that the deeds would be changed when the mortgage was still joint. Lenders generally want mortgagees on the deeds because the loan is secured against the house.

Mostly like the Court Order stipulates when he should be removed, and at that point, a TR1 should be completely. Usually there’s a trigger (like sale or remarriage) or a fixed date (like youngest child leaving education) but it can be as woolly as the just instruction to endeavour to remove as soon as possible. You can have the endeavour statement and the trigger, of course.

I think the OP must mean the mortgages ends in 5 years. It'd be rare for a mortgage to have a 15+ year fixed term rate, wouldn't it?

It does sound like it might be the end of the term though, not the deal.
If OP has been paying it for 10 years and there’s 5 to run, then that’s 15 - plus there would have been the years before the divorce.
I very much doubt that 10+ years ago OP and her XH got a 15+ year fix! Not sure that even existed then - certainly would have been very very niche! She couldn’t have remortgaged in the last 10 years, because then she’d already have been through this with him.

Definitely need @Cos12345 to be clearer about the current situation, and exactly what her worry is!

Its been 10 years. Id be pretty annoyed to still be tied to a house that isn't mine.

@AlbertBridge snap! 🤣

@Hankunamatata

Its been 10 years. Id be pretty annoyed to still be tied to a house that isn't mine.

That bit’s tough shit though - the court will have had a reason for taking that route, and it’s not unusual. It is pretty unusual not to have had a remarriage and cohabiting on clause in there though!

@Cocomarine lender might not want to, but a decent solicitor will get it done

You can still be on the mortgage but be taken off the deeds. That's what my ex and I did.

if the divorce has been finalised and the court stamped it, including the financial arrangement - then there isn't any going back on that.

if there is a consent order, thats been signed by both parties, then there isn't going to be anything the ex can do to change the house being the property of op

@Nomoreusernames1244

In court I was awarded house due to his lying and cheating

This doesn’t happen. In england at least it is due to financial need, not fault.

Get legal advice. If the house is yours there should have been provision to take him off the mortgage. Is he on the deeds? Do you have any paperwork?

I was about to say precisely this.

[quote ivykaty44]@Cocomarine lender might not want to, but a decent solicitor will get it done[/quote]
I do agree with you that if the Consent Order was done properly, then the XH ultimately can do fuck all. But, he can certainly dick OP about and force her to return to court to get the order enforced.

It simply isn’t true that a “decent solicitor” can force a mortgage lender to do something. There is no right for a court to interfere with the mortgage contract from the lender’s side. That’s why there are such things as, for example, Mesher Orders. Because sometimes the court awards the equity in the house to one party, and that party can’t pass an affordability check. They can’t actually “award” the whole house, because the lender has their interest in it too.

When I divorced I was awarded the house, however there was a claus that it needed to be sold by the time my children attained the age of 18 years. When sold any equity would be mine.
It is possible to do the Transfer of the Deeds yourself but I decided to go through a solicitor as my ex was being an ass about it.
I myself also wrote to the building society and while the process was slow they agreed to put the mortgage in my name only.
Whilst I was working as a supply teacher pay was erratic, but with spousal maintenance and child mantenance I could easily afford the interest only mortgage.
I did have to sell the property despite mortgage repayments being relatively low as running costs were considerably high and at the time I had not found full time work.
My ex forced the sale as per court order even though it would have no impact on him. Such a caring father to make sure his children no longer had a family home.

When I divorced I was awarded the house, however there was a claus that it needed to be sold by the time my children attained the age of 18 years. When sold any equity would be mine

What’s the point of forcing a sale of a house you own? If you don’t need to release equity to pay your ex or a mortgage off it seems a very strange clause to include. The only time this sort of sale order is usually included is if one party can’t afford to buy the other out.

@crimsonlake

When I divorced I was awarded the house, however there was a claus that it needed to be sold by the time my children attained the age of 18 years. When sold any equity would be mine. It is possible to do the Transfer of the Deeds yourself but I decided to go through a solicitor as my ex was being an ass about it. I myself also wrote to the building society and while the process was slow they agreed to put the mortgage in my name only. Whilst I was working as a supply teacher pay was erratic, but with spousal maintenance and child mantenance I could easily afford the interest only mortgage. I did have to sell the property despite mortgage repayments being relatively low as running costs were considerably high and at the time I had not found full time work. My ex forced the sale as per court order even though it would have no impact on him. Such a caring father to make sure his children no longer had a family home.

This makes zero sense. Not on the mortgage. Not on the deeds. Court order that all equity is yours.

So why did you sell?
You say it was because of your ex enforcing the order, but you also say you couldn’t afford to run the house.

This simply doesn’t make sense. The trigger to sell would be if he were still tied to the mortgage - which for many people, would stop them from buying another property themselves.

I have no idea why you sold - did he return to court to enforce the order? If you actually had taken over the mortgage and the deeds, I’m pretty sure the court would have told him to jog on.

@Nomoreusernames1244

When I divorced I was awarded the house, however there was a claus that it needed to be sold by the time my children attained the age of 18 years. When sold any equity would be mine

What’s the point of forcing a sale of a house you own? If you don’t need to release equity to pay your ex or a mortgage off it seems a very strange clause to include. The only time this sort of sale order is usually included is if one party can’t afford to buy the other out.

It would make sense if he was simply a party to a joint mortgage, because even if I owed no money, it usually stops you from buying yourself - most ordinary people can’t pass affordability for two concurrent mortgages.

So it’s a fair clause to force the party in the house to either take over the mortgage or if they can’t, sell up to release the other.

A more sensible age to trigger that might have been “when the youngest leaves full time education”, but 18 isn’t unusual and the court will decide just how long it’s fair for the party not in the house to be tied to that mortgage. Just how long do you make someone wait to move on financially after their lives? In this case, the poster had professional qualifications for an industry generally considered to have shortages (though I know it’s subject dependent) AND she had spousal maintenance. I think it’s disingenuous to phrase this around taking away the children’s family home.

And frankly I’m surprised any court would enforce an order already fulfilled by the poster taking on the mortgage.

*It would make sense if he was simply a party to a joint mortgage, because even if I owed no money, it usually stops you from buying yourself - most ordinary people can’t pass affordability for two concurrent mortgages.

So it’s a fair clause to force the party in the house to either take over the mortgage or if they can’t, sell up to release the other*

Yes I understand the need to sell if he had still been tied to the mortgage, but the above poster stated he’s not on the deeds or the mortgage, so no financial ties at all.

So why the need to force a sale once the children reach 18?

I’m with you @Nomoreusernames1244 it doesn’t make any sense and I’d be very surprised if @crimsonlake comes back to say that she challenged it in court unsuccessfully!

It sounds like the driver for the sale was that she could no longer afford the upkeep of the house.

@Cocomarine thankfully my solicitor sorted the deeds into one name, the mortgage wasn't touched or asked to be altered.

To try and clarify a little, although the purpose of my post was to inform the op that it is indeed possible to have the mortgage transfered in to her sole name.
This was my second FDR and FH, having already been through this before some four years earlier.
There were seven hearings in total if you include my attempts at enforcing Court Orders and my ex applying for two spousal variations. I represented myself in all but one of them as did he.
From the get go he argued the wording of the Orders with the court and unilaterally reduced the Court Ordered spousal maintenance and child maintenance.
Basically the final return to court was to vary / terminate life time spousal maintenance and to force the sale of the fmh.
This time he conducted a solicitor and barrister and their argument was that it was highly unusual to be awarded lifetime sm...and they wanted the fmh sold as per court order. As my children had now reached the age of 18 they were financially independent and no longer needed a home with me etc.
Of course I argued that this made no sense as it had no financial bearing or impact on my ex and as my children were students indeed they still needed a base....neverthless I found myself back in court.
For the first time I found the Judge unsympathetic to my case. Yes, someone who had given up their career whilst their ex became a successful high earner could easily find a job!
This hearing was not a simple 'variation' as in my ex could no longer afford the sm, basically he could very comfortably, it was a case I should suddenly completely support myself.
The onus was placed entirely on me for the FH to prove that I had in fact been applying for work to no avail.
I realised then that I had to fight fire with fire and loaned some money from a friend and engaged a barrister for the FH.
We did not actually make it in to court room for the hearing as I had a mountain of evidence of the jobs I had applied for etc. This along with the fact my barrister told his that 'I was a very good witness' they agreed to capitalise the maintenance.
I settled on a lower lump sum than I had worked out on the Duxbury table to be rid of the ball and chain that joint lives sm had become.
It was a sum which would have enabled me to continue living in the fmh for a short time paying the mortgage and related costs and support me until I hopefully found work.
However having been unsuccessful up to that point I was not hopeful. The best course of action was to sell and release the equity, that coupled with the settlement enabled me to purchase a much smaller property mortgage free.
There was not a vast amount of equity in the property as the mortgage payments were interest only so basically once I had used up the settlement I would have found myself in a very difficult position.
I managed to purchase a home with room to accommodate my son's as despite their ages at the time as a mother I believed they were not financially independent and they did need a home base.
My ex was very bitter about having to pay lifetime spousal maintenance and whilst I understand it is 'rare' my situation leading up to this was 'rare'. Financial abuse, hiding assets, cashing in £16k ISA in my name etc so there were valid reasons for being awarded sm.
The worst thing is that to get back at me and to leave me with nothing he was prepared to see his children out of their home.
Sorry about the length of the post.

Ah ok @crimsonlake. You initially made it sound like he enforced the sale of a house you own:

When I divorced I was awarded the house, however there was a claus that it needed to be sold by the time my children attained the age of 18 years. When sold any equity would be mine

From your second post it sounds like he took you to court to stop spousal maintenance, which meant you could no longer afford the family home. That’s a different thing.

It is expected that women can fund themselves post divorce and kids these days. The days of being supported by a man until you die are over.

@Cos12345

So long story ex husband and I divorced over seven years ago, house is still in joint names as mortgage company won't take him off. Although I pay all the mortgage and have done for last ten years when we split. In court I was awarded house due to his lying and cheating , he has just told me dd that when I come to sell the house current mortgage will end in five years he is going to make it hell for me. I have remarried and we intend to stay in house. I'm so worried now anyone experienced this ?

You did not get the house signed over to you because of cheating. Courts don't care about morals.

As for the lying. That very much depends what he lied about.

@Cos12345

Thanks, I am going to check in with my solicitor who dealt with the divorce, but was just asking if anyone had been in similar circumstances.

Well no, because what you describe doesn't happen.

Nomoreusernames1244, as explained the sale of the fmh and variation were intertwined at the time as being the reason I was being taken back to court by my ex.
Whether the fmh was sold or not I still needed to be rehomed and the on going costs with that which may have been more than an interest only mortgage, hence why their argument made no sense.
As for your comment ' the days of being supported by a man until you die are over' As I said it is rare, but due to financial control / mis - management by my ex I was awarded it.
Both parties are supossed to be left on an even footing following divorce. My ex purchased a new home before we reached court, using our joint assets to fund it and furnish it, also a new top of the range jaguar. Whilst seeking a variation and trying to enforce the sale of the fmh with no good reason he then went on to add a £650k home to his portfolio of properties. I simly know these facts from his Form E.
Having given up my teaching career to bring up the children and then return as a supply teacher when they went to school I do now have a permanent job thank you, paying just above minimum wage and will have to continue to work to retirement age and beyond.