To expect my ex to relinquish his share in my property?

[shprinkle]

I bought a house with my ex partner last year. He moved out after 2 months and I have continued to live in the property. I’m paying 100% of the mortgage, and he’s now renting somewhere. Initially I thought I’d probably sell the house as I didn’t think I could take the mortgage on solo, so I told him that but now I’m considering selling my mortgage free rental property and keeping this house instead…

He isn’t happy about this and is requesting that I either buy him out or sell the property. The thing is, he has no equity in the house! I paid the whole deposit, fees etc and he only contributed to 2 months of mortgage payments so it seems wild that he thinks he should be entitled to any sort of pay out?! We’re 50/50 owners on the deeds, both on mortgage, no kids and not married. AIBU to expect him to relinquish his share if I decide to take over the property solely in my name? Will probably be getting solicitors involved next, but I have no idea if my expectations are wildly unreasonable or if his are!

YABU.

How much was the house when you bought it, and how much is it worth now?

Legally, he owns half the equity. I'd write to him: (I've used examples as numbers)

Dear <twat face ex> (or whatever is name is).

You are right. You are indeed entitled to half the equity of the house, so I am happy to buy you out.

We bought the house on <DATE> for £240k with a £40k deposit and it's now worth £250k, so we have £50k equity and you are therefore owed £25k for your half.

To be entitled to your 50% equity, you also need to have paid half the costs, so you need to pay your half of the deposit that I paid (£20k), then 10 months (??) of your share of the mortgage of £600 (??) a month (£6000 in total), plus your share of the buying fees so £2000 (??). This totals £28,000.

As this is less than the £25,000 equity that is owed, then you need to pay me a lump sum of £3000 to have your name released from the deeds.

As a gesture of good will, if you agree to take your name off the deeds immediately, then I am happy to accept your loss of £3000, nor chase you for this money through the courts.

Kind regards,

shprinkle.

I've got no words really.

Sadly this happened to a family member and she ended up having to pay £££.

I'd offer him the two mortgage payments he made, plus costs for removing his stuff and start the negotiations there. If he didn't go for it, I'd point out that he would be just as liable for any defaults, and being stuck on your mortgage means he can't get his own which he may well be desperate for in the future, and so making a clean break benefits him as much as you.

Most helpful advice so far is right here OP

Your solicitor has a fool for a client unfortunately.

Definitely back to the solicitor asap. Think you will be paying him 50% of equity

@DazedDragon sounds good but legally completely unable to enforce that.

No, she's down 2.5k on her initial investment whereas if he had paid an equal share of the deposit, she would be up 10k. Obviously, it costs her the 22.5k but that is only because it is invested in the house.

If she sold the house, they would have 45k profit after the mortgage. If they split it, each gets 22.5k. Op paid 25k deposit so she is getting 2.5k less than her deposit back so that's a loss of 2.5k. I'm ignoring the mortgage payments in this but obviously each payment she makes increases her loss.

Speak to your mortgage company about going interest-only whilst you sort it out. No need to keep giving him a new gift each month.

why not?

If it went to court, the OP could quite easily prove that she paid all the deposit and buying fees, so he would owe half of those.

The paying half the mortgage would be tricker as he has been paying rent, but the OP could probably ask for half of the repayment part, just not the mortgage interest.

I split with my ex and had exactly the same. I'd paid the entire deposit. He had to pay half of this to me from his equity share. I sold the property rather than me buying him out though as I wanted to relocate.

Morally, after a year, I agree it’s CF behaviour for him to expect any of your 25k deposit. But not 50% of the rest of the equity.

And while you can rant about the morality of his CF behaviour all you want, if you base your actions on what you think you ought to have rather than what you are legally entitled to, you’re likely to end up with even less as things drag out and expenses mount.

I would add up the mortgage payments made by each of you since you bought the house and the deposit and work out how much each of you put in as a percentage and split the equity like that.

eg

If the mortgage was £1k a month and you moved in 1 year ago and have made 12 mortgage payments, the total amount of money paid is

£25k (deposit) + £12k (mortgage) = £37k

You would have paid £25k + (2 x £500) + (10 x £1000) = £36k

Therefore, you paid 36/37 x 100 = 97%

He would have paid 2 x £500 = £1000

Therefore, he paid 3% of the costs

You have £45k equity, he should get 3% of that (£1350)

If his share of the equity works out as less than his mortgage contributions, I would be generous and offer him his mortgage payments back.

Unless you both invested money in improvements that need to be taken into account?

Don’t continue punishing yourself for a bad decision - but don’t expect him to have a moral epiphany either. You need proper advice on where you stand legally, whether it’s worth trying to negotiate a lower settlement to take his name off the deeds etc..

She's been paying the entire mortgage each month after the first 2. Not only has the repayment part of her mortgage payments reduced the outstanding loan, but also it has been the interest part of her mortgage payments which have supported the capital growth in the house.

If the BF paid £x mortgage payments and she paid £y mortgage payments + £25k deposit:

She's morally entitled to (£y + £25k) / (£x + £y + £25k) of the £45k equity

He's morally entitled to £x / (£x + £y + £25k) of the £45k equity

But unfortunately, as pp have said, they are each legally entitled to 1/2 of the £45k equity.

Time to negotiate, as a pp said!

This could be a very expensive mistake as legally he can take half your deposit. Perhaps he is only interested in any equity. If that’s the case i’d pay him asap and transfer deeds into your name.

I was in a similar type of situation but had been solely paying the mortgage for ten years (yes, I know...madness! But there was a child in the mix and it was easier for me to stay put) It helped that the mortgage was interest only and the rates were really low. Ex partner and I wrangled a lot about the equity split when the property was finally sold, but came to an accord in the end. He got a good sum of money for basically nothing but I realised that taking a legal route could have used up any equity cash available, and taken ages. I just wanted to move on and that in itself was worth paying for. In OPs position I'd get onto an interest only mortgage deal, and see if you can come to an agreement with the ex. Even if he is a CF.

It doesn’t matter what your personal opinion is, it’s what matters legally!

You failed to protect your deposit and have been paying the mortgage since , as you didn’t take measures to protect yourself , he is entitled to half the equity.

I’d offer 1/2 the equity which is 10k

failing that you’ll have repayment fees legal fees estate agent fees to pay

Expensive mistake to make OP.

Any time you buy a property with someone other than a spouse, it’s sensible to execute a Deed of Trust clearly setting out your intentions as to ownership of the property. In the absence of a deed, the Court will try to infer your intentions from the evidence available.

No doubt your ex will argue that you were madly in love and you both understood that you were buying your forever home, to be shared equally between you. He’ll claim he’s entitled to half the equity. After all, you’re both on the deeds and the mortgage…

What evidence do you have to show this wasn’t your intention? What was the conversation about you putting up the deposit? Did you ever discuss what you’d do if you split? Did either of you spend money on decorating or home improvements?

You’ve made it worse by not dealing with this as soon as you split. You need to get legal advice ASAP.

I imagine you’ll have to offer him something to get his agreement to sign the transfer of the property into your sole name. In your shoes, I’d offer him £5,000 but be prepared to go up to £10,000, being half the £20,000 equity that has accrued since purchase. I’d remind him that he’ll easily spend that on legal fees if an agreement cannot be reached and that effectively he’s getting a payout for minimal effort and expenditure.

You need legal advice.

But without ringfencing in place, you are likely screwed.

Get legal advice.

You will clearly have bank statements that show that you paid 100% of the deposit towards the property (follow the money) and the mortgage on this property apart from the first two months.
If you go down the legal route ask for his side to show where his contributions towards the property are - you'll need statements and so on and he's not going to be able to do this.

You might want to consider offering him a fixed amount of money (say £10k) or something, so it's not insignificant and that you will cover whatever costs are incurred by looking after getting his name off the deeds, in order to get this past the finish post, so to speak.

Please get legal advice rather than relying on anything from here.

My DS was in a similar situation. DS put down the whole deposit and they split after a few months. His ex gf wanted the house to be sold, hoping for a payout even though she’d paid nothing in.

He told her that he was happy to do that. Legally she would also be responsible for half the mortgage repayment penalty, half the mortgage payments since they split and half the legal fees.

As it all cost more than she’d get she agreed to just be taken off the deeds and mortgage. The bank just swapped the mortgage to DS’s name with no penalty, but he did end up paying all the legal fees himself so it cost him a couple of grand but didn’t cost her anything.

So you were warned but just disregarded the professional advice you received.

Unfortunately, as you say, none of that matters.

The mortgage payments would have had little impact on the equity as payments are mainly interest in the first years of a mortgage. I'm assuming the equity growth is mainly due to house prices increasing.