Partner wants to force me to sell house

[moonstone6]

Has anyone who is not married had experience of being taken to court to try and force a sale to your house? We have a jointly owned house. He wants to sell now and split the proceeds but we have a low interest fixed rate mortgage that ends in July 25 so I want to wait till then as we'll have more equity and be penalised 18k for leaving our mortgage early. He earns more than me so selling now works for him. We've had mediation and every thing I offer as an alternative to living arrangements - mainly different nesting options he just objects to so making it pointless.

Ah, I missed that. Tricky.

Assuming that this isn't a typo, why would you do something that would have a negative affect on both of your credit ratings?

You don't want him to stay (understandable) but you need his money to keep the property.

At this point surely the best option is to sell up, move on and use any equity for a deposit on a place of your own.

You know full well you don't get protection of marriage if you didn't get married. You jointly own the house. It needs to be sold and you both get half the equity. Then you can both move on with your lives. You'll get DC one week and he gets them the next. Had you thought your partner can't move on and buy another house because you refuse to sell. A family court would have been more sympathetic to you but you'll get a civil court as you are not married. In a civil court if 2 parties jointly own a property and one wants to sell they generally order the sale. You could go to court but you'd lose and end up paying a lot of costs. Look to downsize if you have enough equity to buy again or for a suitable rental for you and DC.

So what happens when you can’t make the mortgage payments or decide you don’t want to sell next year?

or the house doesn’t sell immediately and you end up on higher interest rate and definitely can’t afford it.

I get you want to stay. But legal fees might cost you more than you would save by staying with the low interest mortgage and still end up having to sell.

Even if you were married, you probably wouldn’t be able to stay in the house. Being married might mean you got a bigger equity split. But unlikely to keep you in the house.

Relationship break downs are awful. But you need to try and be practical. There’s no point getting annoyed you would have kore rights if you were married. You aren’t. I am not either, I am different circumstances, but not judging you for not marrying. But the facts are that you are not married. Who is at fault in the relationship breakdown doesn’t impact the out come of divorce anyway. And it doesn’t impact this situation either.

Seems absurd that if we were married we would be treated differently.

I'm sorry you are in this situation

It seems as if you are not thinking straight. It is an argument in favour of getting married before having children.

I'm very sorry but there it is.

If we were married a court would say that he should move out, and yet because we're not, they won't.

I'm sorry this is going to be another brutal post op, but it sounds like you need a reality check.

A court would most certainly NOT say that he should move out. You would certainly be expected to be able to afford to buy him out ENTIRELY, AND be able to afford to pay ALL the bills by yourself, even before negotiations began about equity shares.

Even when married you don't just get given the house.

Assuming your early repayment fee is currently £18k in the penultimate year, does that mean your mortgage is astronomical (2% erf means your mortgage is £900£k)?

All you are legally entitled to is 50% unless you set it up another way. You will be able to house your children with any equity released by the sale, then would be expected to maximise your income (as a divorcee would also be) to fund your bills. Plus whatever child maintenance is owed.

The sooner you accept this the better (and cheaper) it will be for you.

I agree with the other about just selling up. It really doesn't make any sense at all for you to stay if you can't afford the mortgage on your own. You will most likely lose a lot more than the £9K each you will have to pay to end the mortgage early and you still wouldn't be able to live in the house after you have bought him out. I think you need to think a bit more long-term, less emotionally and more logically. Not being stretched financially is worth a lot and cutting financial ties with your spouse will do you good.

I tried to get married actually.

How is asking why you think you should have the same protections as married people when you're not married " such vitriol and so much support of a man!"?

that's for the person that said i should have got married... i forgot to do the quote thing... i tried but he because he doesn't believe in marriage I couldn't make him.

But you stayed with him and had children with him? Those were choices you made.

How do you try to get married? You either do or you don't.

Tried to get married has no legal standing.

For Your own sake, you need to let go of the 'if we were married'. You still, probably, wouldn't be able to stay in the house.

Especially if you couldn't afford the mortgage. Even when someone gets to stay in the house, after divorce, they have to pay the mortgage and upkeep. Then their ex still gets a decent chunk of the equity when it's sold.

But you chose to have children with him.

If you think marriage is really important and important to children, you could have chose to not have children with him and moved on.

If you didn't know until after you had kids, it obvwasnt that important to you.

OP I’d like to give you a virtual bottle of gin and some flowers
Very sorry it’s all gone to shit for you and the kids. Hope you find a new little place soon. I would sell and in the meantime rent a 1 bed and nest. He can’t object to that while you’re selling and he can afford it!

OP, I'm sorry you're being blamed for this on here.

Unfortunately however, as you both own the house and neither of you are willing to move out, it may well be that the only option is to sell. If you sell, could you buy something new for you and the DC? I'm assuming you'd have less to put towards a mortgage so that could be tricky but that's probably your best option.

I think you should seek legal advice. As there ARE children involved, there is an argument that him letting you have a bigger share of the house would be sensible, but it's entirely possible that the court would simply say, "tough cheese". I don't know and it's certainly why you need to talk to a lawyer. It's obvious he never had any intention of helping you out and the fact that potential his kids will suffer as a result is not really a concern for him.

How is childcare split currently? I'd be quite interested in whether this 50/50 custody he wants is really going to happen.

Also, I'm not convinced about 1 week and 1 week off at this point unless the DC are used to being completely looked after by both of you for extended periods of time.

I didn't mean for this post to turn into a debate about marriage and not being married. What I wanted was someone out there to say 'yes this has happened to me and this what I did' than other people's opinions or telling me that I should have got married.

the figures on the 900k mortgage are not correct... it isn't that big... but not only is it a 18k penalty but also we will earn about 20k in equity. overall i worked it out as a 45k loss.

i understand the children are more important than the financials & i'm honestly surprised at all your comments. you're making me sound very selfish which is what he says I am... so maybe I am. I'm not trying to put money in before the kids happiness and my own. Part of it is: this is their family home and I thought the break up of their home plus the breakup of their parents is a massive blow to undertake. but maybe it isn't. i don't think of the environment as toxic other than when he starts an argument/talks to me. if he kept quiet then we just go about our own business. the kids know we are separate.

i've debated just agreeing to sell and dragging my heels with it so maybe i'll do that... when we moved last time it took nearly a year anyway as we couldn't find a house we wanted.

That seems like a really high mortgage penalty? Have you double checked that, especially considering how little equity you seem to have in the house?

It wouldn't make any difference if you were married, the outcome would be the same.

I was married with two small children and had to sell my house (court ordered) and exh didn’t see the children so even if you were married you might not be able to keep the house. We both wanted to keep the house but couldn’t buy the other out so had no choice in the end.

yup looked at it only yesterday...

ah okay.. that experience is useful. sorry that happened to you...why did they order it though?

I appreciate you do t want a debate about marriage
but that’s the way that it was going to go when you make statements like ‘we would be treated differently if married’.

You would, but it’s pointless thinking about that because you aren’t. It’s not helping you.

But as someone not married who split with a partner, the legal advice you got is correct. They are more likely to side with him, not because he has a better argument. But because it’s an asset held by 2 people and one wants out of the contract and there’s no other legal agreement such as marriage that’s in place. You aren’t married so it’s not like splitting assets when married. But also, if you were married you would still need to be able to afford the mortgage if you got to stay.

The general advice is to not leave the house until it’s sorted. That advice is for both the people involved in the split. So I can see why he doesn’t want to leave. And why you don’t want to.

It’s also not good for the kids to stay in the family home if the parent that lives there with them can’t afford the bills and upkeep. That’s a very stressful and damaging situation for all involved.

Going to court could cost a big chunk of money, but given the situation you are unlikely to win. Like I said, even if you were married you would be unlikely to be able to stay if you can’t afford it.

I knew you'd ask me that but I didn't want to get into the ins and outs of it.

Would it work to keep the children living in the house and you each rent somewhere small elsewhere to stay in when it's not your turn to be with the kids? I've read about that kind of arrangement being really good for the kids.

would your equity share allow you to buy a new property? You can then remove him from the mortgage, simple paperwork and transfer (port) the mortgage to your new property. I separated beginning of 2022 and didn't want to lose my 1.9% 10 year fixed mortgage and like you the fees were astronomical to terminate so I did this and am now in a new place with the 1.9% fixed until 2028.
hang in there. It's tough living with the ex - I did it for a year!