Divorce- is there a way to cut her out?

[cookiecrazylady]

Name changed for this as very outing but long time user.

Ok so I’m looking for controversial advice.
How best to cut a spouse out of profiting on the sale of a property.

My 23yo brother is disabled and got a big payout at 18 which he used to buy a house. It’s worth £250k he met a girl and they decided to get married. All seemed perfect until she convinced him to let her take out a £50k mortgage on the property but she was working so in her name (he was a student). She swiftly spent it, I’m talking £8k earrings, £3k handbags, £4K holiday (with her friends not him)…etc the whole family were raising eyebrows at this point but nothing we could do. 3 months after the wedding she left him. He was devestated, he really loved her. Now she’s demanding £50k cash over and above the mortgage being paid off.

Brother knows he’s been stupid but he has some mild learning disabilities and I do believe she just pulled the wool over his eyes so hard. Is there any way to avoid her getting anything other than the debts/mortgage cleared?

He’s taken legal advice but they only focus on how to proceed with her requests, I suppose I’m looking for a loophole or way out for him although I suspect it doesn’t exist.

Thanks

I'm guessing either they added her to the dress and the 50k mortgage was in joint names or (best case) he took out the mortgage in his name only.

You can't take out a mortgage on a house you don't own. Where is the bank's security?

@whichmag yeah, what OP has been told doesn't add up

Definitely this.
Proper qualified legal advice (first half hour is free but after that it gets expensive) is the only way to be certain.

Whatever the situation it was a short marriage so usually courts would look to restore the situation back to the original financial positions before the marriage.

Get a shit hot lawyer.

Is it actually equity release?

Get a better lawyer, one that will bite back to any 'over and above requests'. But ultimately no, marriage entitles you to half of what you started with, including the house he paid for before the marriage and then moved her into. It will be seen as the 'marital property' so sacrosanct and split-able to meet both parties housing needs.
Source: ex family law paralegal.

Are there photographs and dates of the expensive/extravagant assets such as the earrings? It might help to establish a time line as evidence of it being abuse.

She was put on the feeds/land registry in order to get the mortgage.
They were both students until the last year when she got a job and he continued studying. He had student loan maintenance which more than covered his half of living expenses given they had no rent and only a £200 mortgage repayment.

I actually heard a lot of it from her, she was a talker. We got on pretty well tbh because she was going to be my sister in law so I made a big effort. I did voice my concerns along the way but was always rebuffed as being ‘critical’ or ‘negative’ so got a bit wary of being cut out of my brothers life. But no I’m not getting a jumbled second hand version from my brother I got a lot straight from her. I think she was a bit delusional about their finances and had a shopping addiction. She wasn’t a terrible person to be around just quite calculated.

Possibly look at getting some sort of power of attorney to protect him for the future.
Awful situation - report her for financial abuse, if you can! Get some really good legal advice as your brother also doesn't want that mortgage against his house.

What country does your brother live in OP? Divorce law is different in different countries .

By all means rebut with your opinion/experience but, respectfully, this was my job.

I think I'd be using the situation to make it clear to her that she needs to sign the house back over to your brother, otherwise you are going to file a police report of how she has manipulated a disabled person with learning difficulties and take her to court to repay the £50k.

In the above scenario he'd have to write off the £50k remaining on the mortgage and pay it off, but at least he would be rid of her.

Or you could even do the above and say she needs to pay back at least £25k of the money she stole otherwise you'll go to the police.

OP are you saying your brother bought the house outright, on his own, in cash? But then allowed her to go on the deeds and borrow £50k from the bank, which didn't go towards the house as she spent it on herself? I'm not really understanding the sequence of events here.

It's financial abuse and you should really report it to the police and social services given your brother's vulnerabilities.

If your brother is disabled enough for his future earning capacity to be affected (I assume his £250k payout related to some accident?), then his needs may be put first in any divorce anyway

I imagine the threshold for that would be pretty high though.