Can my stbxh refuse or prevent me from buying him out of the family home ?

[notalotofoptions]

Horrible divorce in progress, my husband is determined to punish me for divorcing him and therefore if I express any preference over anything he goes all out against it, even if my preferred suggestion makes sense financially.

He is older than me and decided to retire early when he realised I was serious about the divorce (given his ever increasing unreasonable behaviour) thereby giving himself a much lower annual income which he assumed I'd be ordered to top up to equalise our standards of living via spousal maintenance. So far there's been no indication from solicitors that I'd be expected to subsidise him following the divorce being finalised but of course on a low income he'll minimise any child maintenance payable to me as the resident parent.

He will not be able to afford to run the family home on his pension income and insists it must be sold. We also own a smaller holiday cottage which we had planned to move to when we both retired and it would make sense for him to live there initially, then sell it if he wants to move somewhere else but he's refusing to move out of the family home until the divorce is finalised which is making things stressful all round and not a good atmosphere for any of us.
I can afford to run the family home and we still have a teenage child at home for another few years plus older siblings coming home from University. The children want to stay in the home for the foreseeable future if possible. I'll be working for another 5-10 years so it would seem reasonable to plan to stay here 5 years.

I'm happy to have the family home properly valued and then "buy" him out by signing over other joint assets to him and possibly taking a mortgage for the difference but because he sees this as him being "thrown out" of the family home, he has seen red over this proposal and is hell bent on preventing that happening. It's enraged him to the point of physical aggression at times.

Selling both houses and buying replacement properties for each of us incurs many extra expenses which could be avoided if we kept them for the time being.

How likely is a court hearing (to be held regarding valuing and splitting our assets) to end in them agreeing with him that the family home must be sold, just because that's what he wants to happen ?

Yep.

And I might not bite my tongue when he blows up.
He doesn't want to do this cleanly and with integrity so for me all bets are off and it's every man and woman for themselves.
If I could get the police out and make a charge stick I would and it would get him out of the house which given he is retired he has NO need to be in.

I'd happily stitch him up by not covering up or minimising his arseholery if it meant staying in the family home and providing what is best for my children.

Cost of moving and stamp duty on new place is all money down the drain so I would look to stay if you a. Want to and b can financially afford it.
I would also emphasize inediation and beyond you want this for the children to give them stability and give them the opportunity to move back home and save deposits ie. as a good mother acting in their interests.

Perhaps you could try just one mediation session and see how it goes? Suss out his strategy and don’t give anything away. But show him the cost to sell both homes (considering estate agent fees, early repayment fees, moving costs. And then the cost of buying including SDLT, conveyancing.

Vs keeping both homes, and make it clear that the children’s mental health, relationship with each of you, their inheritance, will all be damaged/frittered away if you are forced to sell both current properties. Would any of this motivate him?

He will want to feel like he’s ‘won’ so if you can give something up that to him will feel like winning, then offer him that. You’ll spend years and more money than you could ever imagine by taking it to court.

He may well have retired early, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be expected to get a job until his State pension kicks in. Choosing not to work and having a pension will mean he won’t get any benefits, nor will the courts award him spousal maintenance (unless you happen to have a 6 figure salary). Your children won’t be expected to spend overnights at his house, but the courts will expect that the house would be big enough should they change their minds.
Living in the same house as him is detrimental to everyone. I did it for 6 months and I would advise anyone to move out if they possibly can. Trust me, the relief of not having to live with an awful husband more than compensates for the inconvenience of moving.

I've been clear with my solicitor from the start that I realise we are fortunate as far as the starting point is concerned with our financial position and that I anticipate a 50/50 situation due to that. Any further attempts at mediation would be pointless as H has stated that he wants "at least 60%" because my income is obviously higher than his now he has given up work in favour of early retirement.

I knew from the start that we'd have to let a court decide because H is extremely
stubborn but he is using delaying tactics to prevent us making progress towards
such a court hearing.
It took him almost a year to produce a form E which was ludicrously skimpy on details when it was finally made available. He's spent another year denying the need to have his pension funds valued for inclusion at the value they were prior to him starting to draw down on them. He wanted them excluded from the asset pool and just his income from them taking in to account in comparison to my current income. He finally got them valued and his solicitor then pointed out that my pension valuations were now out of date and must be updated (one of which takes at least 10 weeks to be obtained) thereby delaying the process further.

When I started the divorce process I had 2 teenagers living full-time at home and one just starting Uni. Now there's just the youngest at home full-time but due to H no longer working, student maintenance loan top-ups are all coming from our savings instead of being funded out of income as they would have been if H was still working.

Isn’t the whole point of mediation that it’s the opportunity to come to a common agreement? If you already agreed the financial matters, then you wouldn’t need it, but as you disagree, then it’s needed.
Regarding his pension, either the pension pot is taken into account, or his actual pension income. It can’t be both.

H has never compromised on stuff during marriage it was his way or not at all. Gradually I opted for "not at all" and did my own thing with the kids instead.

He's fighting for his retirement to be partly financed by me here and has nothing to lose as far as I can see so will not want to negotiate to a reasonable position.

He's also determined that I must not get anything that I express a preference for (which is how this thread started) so to state my position openly in a mediation session will let him know what I would like/see as reasonable and then he'll fight that all the way to punish me for wanting to divorce.

I suspect the judge in court will see straight through him and ask why he's chosen to give up work;unless it's on medical grounds then it's because he's a lazy twat who sees you as his meal ticket;it's also why he's unwilling to move out as it means having to financially support himself instead of continuing to enjoy his time as a cocklodger.

I mean this kindly, you are not seeing the wood for the trees. Yes he has treated you appalingly. Yes he has lied and manipulated you over and over. Yes it is unfair. But.

50/50, sell the house, cut ties and be rid of him.

You are letting the emotional distress of leaving the "family home" lead you further into stress and upset - all while he spends joint savings on fighting you.

You said you can outright buy a 3 bed with the 50 pc of house sale proceeds? Start viewing some nice ones. Get some enthusiasm for the future.

@MrsElsa I think you've missed that H insists he should come away with at least 60% of our assets, so sadly it's the court route for us in order to try and order a 50/50 split which he'd then be bound to abide by.

Until we've established the final split we can't go house shopping and as we own the family home jointly and of course he won't agree to sell anything jointly owned until he's forced to by a court order, purely to be awkward.

He is the one who can't see the wood for the trees, I keep banging on about the costs and he's oblivious, blinded by rage.

MrsElsa is right. And part of the big picture here is that your ex likes conflict. They thrive off it and it is very likely they use it to get their own way and to bully people. He will like nothing else than to get you or others to engage with his conflict. He wants you to lose your temper with him. He wants you focus on his agenda and not your own. He will never see himself defeated and he won’t accept responsibility. There is no closure with people like this and no comeuppance. They just regroup and go at it again. They will drag you into their conflict and their way of thinking.

The only way to deal with this is legally and personally to grey rock him. Don’t play into his games. He knows you want to stay in that house and he is pushing your buttons on this issue. Unfortunately you have no legal grounds to be awarded the house because you need it. He deliberately ran down the clock on that.

IMO push forward to get an agreement on how much you will receive as a share of the assets. If that is agreed in court and it allows you to buy him out then put that to a judge. If all you will ever be entitled to or can reasonably secure won’t buy him out then just come to terms with a move.

Legally you can fight him tooth and nail for dwindling assets. Whether you are legally successful will be for time (you don’t have) to tell. I see plenty of posts from people who have done this. But I also see a huge level of bitterness and resentment in those posts. To achieve their court victory they have fucked their mental health and become a high conflict person.

In contrast people who post about compromising and working out a deal that’s not always financially the best for them are much happier. They get what they really wanted from a divorce. Which is never having to deal with the other persons shit again. Never having to put up with blaming and complaining.

I completely get that you want to demonstrate he devalued his pension pot and want to present evidence of that in court along with his ability to work. It will be relevant. But the need to house adults won’t be and will distract from other aspects of your case. Your ex wants you to fall into that trap.

get your share agreed. Then ask the court to agree to him selling to you.

What do you mean get a solicitor to purchase on your behalf.
I’m interested in this as I really want a property my husband wants and my barrister has said given our circumstances the courts will probably tell us to sell it.
Can someone buy a property on your behalf?
Sorry don’t want to derail the thread.

@Busbygirl I know of two family cases where we instructed a solicitor to act on their behalf, private sale. I am in Ireland so not sure of jurisdiction.

They found out after everything was done and dusted, could not have happened two nicer twits.

Thanks Marbles. Very interesting.

@Marblessolveeverything Did the property not have to be marketed by an Estate Agent ?

It was a long hard difficult road with a very angry, demanding ex husband who blocked/delayed everything he could, but getting the keys to MY house that he couldn’t enter was one of the best moments of my life. It was smaller and my financials were a total mess but I was free of him and he couldn’t make any more demands and that was priceless.
I wouldn’t stay in family home, he would never have left me alone.. get things sorted through court and move on.. my kids thrived once we had freedom. We may not have much money but the freedom made up for it. You just can’t reason with men like that.

No private sale.

Are you able to also retire, for the process of divorce time and then go back to work?

A. What is the difference in terms of £ between him getting 50% and 60% of the assets?

B. How much would it cost to go to court for a judgment?

What would the difference be between A and B?

Have you removed your share from the joint savings accounts?

I have every sympathy. Reading your posts brings back my divorce from a very similar sounding xh who cost me tens of thousands in legal fees as he chose to play games, delay and demand outrageously. We ended up much closer to my offer than his demand ... and he was told that he would be expected to work until retirement, despite the fact he claimed he wouldn't be able to due to his disability. The judge told him that he would need a specialist medical assessment if he wanted to claim that he couldn't work.

@Marblessolveeverything That's a pity as H will insist that we use an Estate Agent to value & market the property and with the house being jointly owned we'll be jointly appointing the agents who will report to both of us so no secrecy possible and I'm also not sure how it would all work with stamp duty etc.

@Daftapath Great minds think alike 😉. This is the very calculation that I am constantly bearing in mind. However, although A is easily calculated but dwindling week by week, B can only be estimated as even my solicitor can't be that sure of the estimated future costs. Your post is also quite timely as the latest letter from his solicitor states that H's early retirement was necessary on the grounds of ill health so he's clearly now doubling down on his "you need to support me and let me have the bigger share of our assets". We're both anxious and stressed over the divorce but hopefully a judge would not accept that as needing to give up working for a living.
Did the judge allow the financial resolution process to be delayed waiting for a specialist medical assessment ?

H is over 55 so old enough to start drawing his pensions without it being on the grounds of ill health. His pensions are all private, not employer schemes like mine which I can't draw on until I'm 60.

The judge told him that he needed the medical assessment (as requested by my barrister) if he was going to claim that he wouldn't be able to work in the future and so needed a larger share. My barrister said we could request a second assessment if need be. Can't remember the name of the form/assessment that we requested.

The judge also pointed out that our case, if it went to a full hearing would take 3 days, with associated costs (although a figure wasn't quoted). Pointed out a few other things that he hadn't provided to support his claims. She suggested we should split the cost of the FMH and it should be sold if I couldn't get finance to pay his share to him within 3 months (I was living in the fmh with the children)

This then focussed him. With lots of running between rooms at court, he eventually settled and we went back in to the court room for the judge to agree and sign off our settlement.

We had started at a difference of more than 500k between my offer and his demand and it took two and a half years to get there.

What did help my case, I think, was that I had a mortgage capacity report done which showed that I could get a mortgage to pay him his share. So me keeping the house was a viable option.

We should be good for having a mortgage free property each, it's the running costs thereof that would determine how we decide to house ourselves going forward.

I would imagine that you/your solicitor can argue that it is up to him how he funds his lifestyle once the properties are sold and that he is capable of increasing his income - pointing out that his earning capacity is greater than yours, in fact, and how much he earned previously.

IANAL, obviously, so your solicitor should be able to advise on this

Massive red flag to me is that he's been spending joint savings on his solicitor fees. You need to take the equivalent and then half of whats left out and put it in an account in your name only. Don't allow him to swindle away the marital savings.

Put a claim in now for CMS for the youngest as you are the main provider. Show him you mean business and you won't be backing down to his demands.

You have to go to mediation to get to court so push for that.