*TOXIC MUM* Do I take her to court?

[LIZ1017]

Very long one so please bare with me...
I bought a house with my mum when I was 18 (10 years ago). House was 150,000 and have paid the mortgage since. Mum moved house to a £300,000 house after receiving some money from a family member. We transferred the mortgage and have paid £300 a month for 10 years towards the houses.
Fast forward 10yrs, I met my lovely husband 9 years ago and we have 2 children 5 and 2. We are currently renting but finding it hard to save as we are paying for mum's mortgage. ( I have never lived in these houses). Ne and my husband are now looking to buy a house and (as my mum promised whilst growing up) I have asked for 30,000 for a deposit. This is what I have put into the house over the years. I'm not asking for a penny more.
However she has now told me she has used what she had in savings (20,000) to pay the rest of the mortgage off leaving 16,000 now left on our mortgage. And that she doesn't have the money to give me. My mum owns 4 house, rents 3 out, has a well paid job and holidays 3-4 times a year. We on the other hand are literally drowning.
I have asked her to remortgage the house and take my name from it and she has refused as she states she will then have to give me 125,000 and she's not doing that.
Where does this leave me? Would I be unreasonable to get a solicitor involved?

Go legal and get your fair share which will be more than 30k.

I hope that you’ve been getting a share of the rental income of the houses that you pay the mortgage on.

Sell the house. Serve her notice.

If she has multiple houses of her own I have absolutely no idea why you are paying for her house when you can't afford to rent yourself.

It's ridiculous and you can't afford to do it.

It's as simple as that. If she can't manage her finances that's not your problem to fix. You just need to fix your finances and if she's defaulting on you, you need to treat her like you would treat any other tenant.

This is precisely why you shouldn't mix being a landlord with family members.

@LIZ1017 this! My DB had a situation where his ex offered him a lump sum upon selling their house. He went the legal route and he was owed considerably more. If your mum is well off and you aren’t, I don’t understand why you may want to settle for less. Doing a deal with your mum without legal backup would be very risky indeed. She needs to buy you out or sell!

So first house was bought by HS2 it was a compulsory purchase but we made £40,000 profit which then went I to second house where we transferred the mortgage too

Please please please go to a solicitor ASAP as I suspect she owes you way more than 30 grand and can easily give you anything to which you are entitled by selling one of her properties.
The fact that she'd rather sit on her riches than help her daughter and her own grandchildren is just awful.
You're going to have to be ruthless.

FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR CHILDREN, if you can't do it for yourself.
Best of luck @LIZ1017

Sell the house. Serve her notice

She can't do that when her mum is co- owner! 🙄

Definitely seek legal advice! In a way it's a form of financial abuse - she's taking advantage of you and not releasing the money you are owed, as well as taking from you for years.

You are definitely owed a share of the "profit" these houses have made, don't accept anything less.

I know it's hard because it's your mum - but she hasn't acted in your best interests, so you need to do it for yourself.

Your OP is really unclear but it sounds as if have a legal right to force a sale of the house you own jointly with your mother and obtain the £100+k capital locked up in it. Not at all unreasonable to do so. You've helped your mum out for the last decade, now it's time to look after your own family.

The solicitor will work out the exact figure that you're owed. Be prepared to have to spend serious money on this. Fees depend on how complicated it all gets, but you could be looking at £10k or so. You can usually get half an hour's free advice from a solicitor, so go for your initial consultation armed with all the paperwork and proof of payments you've made and make best use of that free 30 minutes. At the end of that the solicitor will tell you whether you've got a good case. Just focus on the facts and the paperwork to your solicitor: don't spend ages mithering about how awful your DM is. Good luck.

I can't help on the legal front, but beware you will need to pay tax on any profits if/when you sell the house as you've never lived there. Capital Gains Tax needs to be paid within 60 days of completing a sale.

You probably should have paid it on the first property also, but hopefully that's long in the past now to be within HMRC's remit.

Then you need to force a sale.
Either sell it outright and split it- as you are joint owner.
Or- she buys you out.
She cannot simply decide that she's doing neither of those options.

OP do what exactly did you get out of this arrangement?
Your dm got a house with reduced mortgage payments as you were paying presumably half.

What did you get?

What percentage did your share equate to?

You don't seem to realise that if you part paid and you are on the mortgage, you likely own a percentage of the house. I hope you are on the deeds. I assume you will be if you are on the mortgage.

Typically a contract would have been made at the time. Do you remember if this happened? It would have stated what would happen in the event of one party wanting to sell.

You need to get your entire share of the house. Not just what you put it. The value would have increased substantially

Your mother sounds horrendous

You need to force the sale and get your lump sum out of the house before you and your husband buy another. If you have two properties you will be liable to Capital Gains Tax and possibly other penalties. And you may struggle to get a mortgage on one house if you already have another mortgage. This needs to be sorted out immediately.

You absolutely need legal advice. Firstly, to advise you on the legal position with regard to the property and secondly to negotiate a settlement with your mother.

It sounds like you're plucking £30,000 from thin air. If you have paid half the mortgage, then I imagine your financial interest in the property is much larger than that.

You can do some of the admin tasks yourself to save on legal costs. I'd start by getting the historical mortgage statements from the lender so you can see exactly what you and your mother have respectively paid. You also need a copy of the title from HMLR to check whether the property is held as joint tenants or tenants in common. Also get the title of any other properties she owns.

You need legal advice.

If your name is on the deeds and mortgage of one of the houses then you are likely entitled to 50% of the equity which will go a long way towards a deposit by the sound of it.

You were young and presumably trusted your mum when you made these decisions but you are not young and naive now, it's time for you to take some responsibility. When you take a mortgage out with another person the bank doesn't see your liability as 50/50, if one of you can't pay they will make the other pay. Your mum could have been running up arrears on the mortgage and damaging your credit rating without you knowing.

You would be a fool to settle for less than 50% of the equity after you have paid 50% of the mortgage.

On the face of it, YANBU - it sounds like your mum took advantage of you when you were only 18. You need to get some legal advice asap.

Without any written deed of trust setting out the arrangement, the Court will try to ascertain or infer the intentions of the parties.

What was your understanding of the agreement? Were you intending to buy a house for your mother for her to retain? Was there ever a conversation about her paying you back or helping you out in later life? Did you think you'd inherit the house eventually? Do you have any evidence (written, texts, emails, etc) to show what you'd both agreed?

You need a solicitor who will act to force the sale of the house. It is likely to have appreciated in value and you will probably have a right to more than you have paid off in the mortgage. I expect you are entitled to half of the price you get for the house after the mortgage is settled when it’s sold.

Your mother has financially exploited you to pay for her housing and I wouldn’t listen to a word she says about having overpaid the mortgage. Get a good solicitor, which will cost loads but you should end up with a decent amount of money after the house is sold, so the solicitor is worth it.

I would say to mum that as she has not been willing to refund your mortgage payments to enable you to buy your own property you have looked into this further and as a joint owner you are entitled to half the property value

Option 1 - you force a sale of this property
option 2 - she remortgages and buys you out
option 3 - she sells one of her other properties and uses the proceeds to buy you out

Which would she prefer

The 30k option is no longer on the table

This is absolutely shocking. I would also go legal and get the 50% you're entitled to. It will go a long way towards buying a home for you and your family.

You were taken advantage of by your mum.

Please, please...see a solicitor and get legal advice. Please do not let your mum get away with this.

You are owed FAR more than £30k from this.

If your name.is on the deeds then you jave the right to sell and retrieve your share of the money. Go and see a solicitor.

As said legal fees will ne expensive. Pay for a solicitor to see what you could do. Then get the soliton send a letter of intention, if she can't/won't come to a settlement. Tell her that you are seeking legal advice. Decide on what you need and what you'll take. Avoid court, if possible.

Given your age at the time the property was bought there may well be issues over the advice you were given at the time as well.

What you do need to do though is as suggested get all the documents together and write up an account of what happened.

I suggest getting someone else to read it first so its clear and understandable

who is the mortgage currently with? I’d be calling them and asking for a balance statement.

You can force a sale, and I don’t see that you have any other option really. See a solicitor, she may then decide it makes more sense for her to take a mortgage for the £30,000 instead.