Threaten to go back to court

[Julie1234566]

Hi everyone. So am now divorced and ex husband has £500k coming to him once the house has been sold. This was a financial agreement by the court, even though the house in my name. Problem is I have no one interested in buying my house, been on market for a year. He is threatening to go back to court in march if not under offer. why or what he will achieve I don't know. Can the courts change things. I.e. make me sell for a stupid price and not what it has been valued at? Please help, I thought I was done with all the stress when the divorce was finalised.

Yes the court can make you sell at market value. Which ultimately is price it sells at. He might even get costs awarded if you are not taking steps to sell.

Did you agree a % share or a fixed amount?

Thank you. It's on at the price dictated by the estate agents at the time of divorce. I gave him a fixed figure of £500 k. Surely if gets sold for less, I can adjust his figure? The estate agent is doing her best to market it. It's been advertised, had open viewings, can't produce a buyer out of thin air.

Presumably you didn't stipulate % of sales price on your divorce paperwork?

No. My lawyer said to offer a fixed amount at the time. I thought I was being generous giving him that amount considering we only lived here 3 years and married for six and he contributed zero. If it sells less than the estate agent valued it for I will actually be getting less than him! That doesn't seem atall fair!

It would have benefited you in a rising market, or if the property was undervalued. The market is not rising and it looks it was over valued. Most people use % to be fair if the market rises or falls.

If the market falls you will be even more disadvantaged and have court costs. I would get motivated to sell. Any % drop in the market will cost you money.

That's another story. When u get married assets are split half, I never knew. I had my house and he moved in. 3 years and they called it the matrimonial home. He said he worked on the house to increase . My dad put in the same as me as we wanted to look after him. His 87. The ex said, and tried to get his equity too. He failed. Just got my half. Answering ur question, I really don't know how he got so much. He paid 40 a week in rent. Narcissistic is the word.

The market has dropped a lot in a year! Your house is overpriced. I'm afraid yes the court can force you to sell so you need to drop the price now or you're likely to end up even more out of pocket.

In the UK Marriage is a legal contract and the "all that I have I give to you" vow reflects the sharing of all property within the marriage. This has offered protection and stability to the very many women who gave up their ability to earn in order to look after children. Many many threads here on Mumsnet saying to women "you are entitled to 50% even if you haven't put anything much in the pot".

We really ought to have a mandatory legal session before people are allowed to enter civil partnerships/marriages, so everyone understands what they are getting themselves into.

Maybe going back to court wouldn't be a bad thing. You can use it to revisit the fixed offer?

We really ought to have a mandatory legal session before people are allowed to enter civil partnerships/marriages, so everyone understands what they are getting themselves into.

agree. But also when you decide to share assets with someone in any way, and have a child...

if there is a sealed final consent order you csnt to back to court unless there is evidence if a harder event I think it’s called, which means something was extremely incorrect in the disclosure of financials at the time which could have led to different outcome - ie one party did not disclose a £1m pension

a dip in market prices if houses won’t be enough to do this

its an unusual case if you have relatively short marriage - there must be substantial assets for ex to get 500k from the house