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.

You buy him out or you sell. That’s how it works, married or not. He doesn’t have to let you stay in a house that he partially owns.

If you can’t afford it, tough tits. You buy what you can afford or rent.

A clean break is best.

So what is your partner proposing if you are as joint mortgage holders going to make a loss of £45k?
Is he offering to cover the penalty cost for exiting the mortgage early?
There will also be sellers/estate agents fees and solicitors.
Are you really sure of your numbers.- has the house devalued significantly? That's a very high mortgage/loan to equity ratio to have been given by the bank. Or is he suggesting that since he put his funds into the house, he takes those leaving you with shared equity of £20k less penalties and fees?
Did you contribute to the mortgage payments over the term, pay for any household improvements or bring any equity to the arrangement.?

If you signed a tenants in common agreement saying he could walk away with his investment intact, you would split any equity then I would be taking legal advice to see how much you could challenge it. It sounds as though he is desperate to get out so only by being awkward and stalling might you get some advantage.

Do you want a downpayment / deposit for a rental for example?
How is the childcare split going to work if you can't afford to live in the same area so the kids can stay in school?

Even if you were married the house would likely be ordered to be sold asap.

Courts very much favour clean breaks these days, as opposed to allowing orders for the house to be kept and one parent move out if it is in joint names. Unless one of the parties is a very high earner I.e over 150k pa.

I don't think it's about posters agreeing with "a man".

It really is essential to marry BEFORE having kids, especially if one is the lesser earner.

A very Uber wealthy woman brother knows has kids and won’t marry their dad because she doesn’t want to lose her inherited assets!

Are you (or he) planning to purchase a new property when your house sells? If so, can’t one of you port the mortgage to the new home, thus avoiding the penalty?

Whether you are married or not the court can force a sale.

In your favour is that house sales take a while, I would compromise and put on the market after Easter so at most it's a year's penalty

It isn't absurd that you're treated differently if you're not married. The whole point of marriage is to create a binding legal contract between you, but you have chosen to start a family with this man without that contract.

Anyway, you can't undo what's already done, so your best bet now is to follow whatever advice your solicitor gives you and hope for the best.

If it were me, I would offer to sell as long as the early repayment fee which is what you are bothered about comes out of his 50% as he is not willing to wait.

You won’t be “losing” £20k of equity, you just won’t be paying it in (although you will “lose” an indeterminable about that you would get through house price inflation over the next year).

You should also work out how much interest you’ll pay over the next year on the mortgage when working out the true cost exiting early (but in reality the loss is the £18k ERC).

But if you want to split up, the house does need to be sold or one of the parties needs to be bought out (could he buy you out given you can’t afford it?).

I won’t pile on too much as others have said it enough though - this is exactly what marriage is for, it’s protection for when it ends (either in death or divorce) rather than about the happily ever after and it’s why MNers harp on about it so much! The problem with situations like this when people argue you should have the same protections as marriage is you are taking away the choices of people who choose not to get married as they don’t want the implications it brings. And that’s why I will take every opportunity to fight against cohabitation giving the same rights as marriage or the idea of a common law marriage wherever I can.

But OP in your defence, we’re not taught about this enough and society has made marriage about being together forever when really it’s about being an economic unit for a specific period of time until you chose not to be.

Since you can't buy him out that means the house has to go up for sale. Throw some carrots his way. Agree to a sale as soon as possible providing he pays the penalty and the estate agent/solicitor fees (and get that in writing). See what he says to that. That would save you nearly £15K that you would have to pay anyway.

Don't be an arse by dragging your feet over it. Get it over and done with so you can both move on.

Are you sure about the £18k ERC? Usually the penalty percentage drops year on year, so it’s 5% in the first year of a five year year fix, and by the fourth year it’s only 2%. If you’re fixed till next summer, then if you actually sold in the preceding 12 months it would usually only be 1%.

Is the 50% childcare plan one he has come up with in order to ensure you both get an equal time with the children and they with each of you? Or to avoid paying child maintenance? I ask as if the former he may be willing to make some concessions to help you house the children appropriately when they are with you, for their sake. If the latter, expect it to up somehow always end up being a lot less then half the time at his, whilst you still don’t get any maintenance.

In terms of losing equity by selling early, who knows where house prices are going? This could be the perfect time to sell! It’s also a pretty slow market in a lot of areas, you could find it takes ages to sell.

Trying to keep things civilised for the children is vital. Would you both consider couples therapy? It’s for those who have split as well, and can help one to build something less toxic as Co parents.

The court ordered the sale of the house because both exh and I wanted to keep it but couldn’t afford to buy the other out. We had to sell up and split the equity and both downsize. The fact my dc were still young (under 10) made no difference.

I could have afforded the mortgage month by month but not the amount to exh. The children stayed with me and did not see him at all.

It made no difference that we were married either except this was all part of the financial settlement on divorce. I personally would have been better off if not married because I was the higher earner (not that high but he had no earnings at all.)

I think you will have to look at selling up and moving on with a different mindset. See it as a fresh start and downsizing has its advantages. No point hanging on to the house if you can’t afford it and he won’t agree.

OP…. Just sell the house. You can’t afford to buy him out and digging your heels in will just make him take you to court. And a court will order the sale and could very well take the whole process out of your hands, and put it into his. You will have no say over which offer is accepted and likely his legal fees will come out of YOUR share of the equity.
I’m genuinely sorry for your relationship breakdown. It’s always sad and Never easy. Even once you are at the end of the term you will face an early repayment charge there will be some other reason it will be the “wrong” time (house prices, interest rates, no where in your budget).
You are the stick in the mud right now and you’re the one making an already emotional time more stressful and toxic for your children. Forget about what you want, it’s irrelevant. Your lifestyle will change, but there’s nothing you can do to stop that. Sell the house and start thinking about what’s next for you.

900k house! Is that a typo?

hell no do not move out. Assume it’s big enough to avoid him so do that

sorry no advice and ignore the mafioso on here it’s annoying when they chime in without adding anything useful to your actual dilemma

@Quitelikeit how rude, telling OP to ignore people's replies. You wrote you have no advice to give, yet chastise others for 'not adding anything useful'? 😆

But you chose to have children with him though.

Talk to your mortgage provider - you might be able to claim back the leaving fee if you use them for your next mortgage within 6 months

He deserves to be in the house as much as you do.

As an aside, my friend is currently going through a very messy divorce and they are still living together. The house is on the market but until it is sold they will continue to live together. Just because they are married doesn’t mean one of them automatically has to leave when the relationship breaks down.

Can he buy you out and stay in the house with the kids?

if you can’t afford it how will you make the payment? Sounds more sensible to sell now before you default. Might be how he is thinking about it.

No, he didn’t want to get married because he knew very well that would entitle you to something in the event of you two splitting up, and he didn’t want that.

Now you are splitting up, and as planned, he doesn’t owe you any kind of financial settlement such as letting you stay on in the house, or anything other than a 50/50 split in equity.

I’m not saying this to tell you off for not marrying him, just to point out that this is exactly what he intended by not marrying you. It isn’t accidental. The fact he wouldn’t marry you was a massive red flag.

Are you both able to buy properties with the equity from the house sale? What’s the reality in your area of the place you will end up in….? Is he really thinking the kids are going to be happy if you can only afford to buy somewhere they wouldn’t be comfortable in?It’s a shame that bird nesting is not an option as this would seem logical until the mortgage is up. Have you been through any counselling to try and break this impasse?

If it's really about the rate breakage fee, offer a counter proposal and agree to sell now if he fully absorbs the breakage free.

I suspect it's about far more than the fee.

ooh this is a good idea!! i'd have to work out how that would work but that makes a lot of sense! or maybe he takes the mortgage and i get a smaller one but more cash out of the house...hmmm.

we ported a previous mortgage so i don't know why i didn't think of this!!