My friend, let's call her Katie, has been in a ten year relationship with Adam, they were engaged, two kids (9yr(m)/2yr(f)) and jointly owned a three bed house, Katie is part time minimum wage, Adam is full time on good money, they live in the UK.
Katie was really depressed and unhappy during lockdown being pregnant, family deaths, homeschooling and she felt unsupported by Adam so she ended the relationship.
Break up was pretty amicable, Adam was pushing for him to buy her out or sell, but it didn't work out very well financially for Katie so they decided to nest. For them nesting is basically the kids living in the family home, Katie and Adam split the nights evenly. Katie stayed with her parents or at friends when she didn't have the kids, Adam did the same.
Two years have passed and Katie has been seeing Dan now for about a year, things are now pretty serious between them. Adam is still single but he's also been seeing other women.
Katie and Adam got into an argument and Katie agreed for Adam to let him buy her out, but then she went to a solicitor the advice was if she could continue doing what they're doing it would work out better for her. She explained this to Adam but he turned around and said something along the lines of 'if we're going to live together for the next 16 years then I'm going to live in the house full time'
So he's basically threatening to stay at the house every night, which I guess he has the right to do? The problem is they have to share a room. Katie's in a relationship and he's not.
Katie's tried saying they will need to take it in turns in the bedroom but he's just saying it's a jointly owned bedroom so if she wants to keep living there together they have to share the room (and bed).
She's suggested getting single beds but he's being difficult with that saying he would 'be willing to negotiate'. The kids are not at ages where they can share and it's not fair on them to make them share a room with either Katie or Adam...
I just don't know what advice can I give to Katie?
If she lets him buy her out she'd have to rent which is really going to eat away at the equity money from the house. She is also not sure if it's even possible with her low earnings, she'd probably need a guarantor.
She could stay with her mum but it would be a massive burden on them, they have enough rooms for her and the kids to have their own rooms but it would be a lot of work to make one room back into a bedroom and I'm not even sure if her mum would even go for that option.
Or there's Dan's house, he's agreed to give the kids rooms in his house, but one thing Katie and Adam do agree on is they don't want the kids to be messed around, so this could be a good option in the future but Katie and Dan's relationship is just a little premature at the moment.
The other thing is - what Katie really wanted to do, is wait until the youngest is old enough to go to school, then she feels like she can get a full time job and try to buy Adam out. But it's just going to be really difficult to do that now with them living together like this, for the next three years or so... and with no guarantee she will be able to afford it alone at any point...
Adam is a good father and a genuinely nice guy, he's just being difficult and he can be argumentative.
Seems like a really difficult one... Has anyone else been in a situation like this, I just want to find a good solution for Katie...
Also does anyone know if starting mediation or going via courts could help her at all?