This will maybe be a long one but wanted some neutral feedback from people who are not friends!
Me and my other half have been together for 12 years and have two children together 9 and 10, then children from previous relationships. Up until covid hit we shared custody of my other half’s kids from previous relationship, they basically came down every weekend Friday to Sunday eve and we did lots of lovely things as a family of 8. I have always always tried to be a good step mother and include everyone the same, I’m ashamed to say even to the detriment of my own kids sometimes. I just wanted everyone to get along. And eventually I think we had a great blended family. After covid, my OH kids seemed to not want to come down as much, they are older teens too so this is a factor, which is fine. They are welcome whenever and we still do holidays etc. but it hurts to think that all those years I put my heart and soul in to raising them all the same and I’ve literally never had one step mum card, and the kids are quite mean to me really 🙈 I think because of what they are listening to at home.
Now my OH basically left his property which is a joint mortgage, and has paid a huge chunk of child maintenance, informal agreement, without fail. Initially this was £600 a month, but dropped to £400 a couple of years later as the amount was unmanageable with us basically having everyone for 3 days, and sometimes one day in the week and now other children. Mortgage was on interest only so ex was only paying around £200 per month for years. In this time she had moved someone else in too and had a child same age as our oldest child together.
Now we wanted to purchase a house and never could as financially saving was just impossible with so many outgoings and rent at £600 a month. Sadly my mum passed away which was horrendous and I’m still struggling with it now. My only parent. However that gave us the funds to purchase as my mum left her house to me. Now over the years we’ve been begging them to take my OH name off the mortgage, but they’ve refused and his ex saying the house was for the kids etc, basically they wouldn’t be able to live there without my OH name on due to their financial situation I think. They got married 5 years ago at which point we asked again for his name off. And again nothing happened. So as this is a second properly we had to pay the higher stamp duty charge, which came to 8k 😰 but I spoke to them and they promised me they would sort the house so that we could claim the higher charge back. We also had to accept a higher rate mortgage as the one we initially got accepted for failed on affordability because of the second properly, so past 2 years we’ve been paying an extra £150 a month on this mortgage. 🤦🏽♀️ Well nothing has happened again and we have a year now to sort this out to claim the stamp duty back. We went to a solicitor who advised us to write a letter asking for mediation, which we did. Ex has refused that saying it’s a waste of time. So solicitor advised we apply to the courts to force the sale. My OH youngest children with ex are now 17 and 16, but solicitor advised that because they have been so obstructive and are married then it’s highly likely the order of sale will be granted.
Anyway, getting to the point, they also said my OH is entitled to half the equity. I’ve told him that he needs to go for that, as it’s for the kids, I really feel that if he just lets that go it will get frittered away on whatever crap they are spending all their money on/ holidays/rent as they’ve not been able to sort their financial situation out over 5 years! Plus she’ll still have her 50% too. Whereas we would invest in our property or even put in an account for his kids. Even though I put the deposit in for our house, our intention when we’re both gone is to split our estate equally between all our children.
The mother had now involved the eldest daughter 22 who is messaging saying if my OH takes half the equity she will never speak to him again etc.
What do you think, should he just back down and let her and her new husband have all the equity? I also think they’d just stay in the property indefinitely if we don’t push them and unsure what to do too. Bear in mind we would never leave anyone homeless, we’re just at a loss and trying anything to force some sort of movement to being free of them/the property. Would rather not go to court though of course!