Is there any realistic way to get him to leave-post divorce?

[FancyCatSlave]

Divorce finalised in Dec last year with consent order ordering marital hime to be sold and split 50/50-all good and amicable. Ex was never on deeds or mortgage and didn’t register home right.. House is for sale but it’s a quirky thatch that will take months and months (could be years) to sell.

Ex is about to complete on purchase of new home and doesn’t need his equity out of marital home to do so. He’s announced that he is intending to WFH from family marital home until it’s sold. So not paying any bills but coming and going as much as he likes. The thought of having to have him here for months and months spying on me makes me feel ill. It’s completely unnecessary-he will have his own home. I can’t buy or rent until sale as the mortgage is large.

Is there any way to stop this? It’s torture. It might’ve be amicable but now he makes me feel sick. I want to have friends over and family to stay (he made this impossible when married).

Ugh. Thundercunt. An occupation order ?

Im pretty sure you could change the locks now. I’d wait until the purchase has gone through and then do it very quickly. You’ll need to be bloody well organized.

Any chance you can get his keys to the new place and if he goes away for the weekend get him moved out.

Id happily help this kind of stealth endeavor. You could get lawyers involved but shame to waste the money. But legally I don’t think he’d have a prayer in court.

Check out The Legal Queen on Insta - she has covered this before and I believe there is a way you can keep him out of the house while still owning part of it (ie. Its your HOME but he lives elsewhere so doesn't need to have access).

Oh he’s moving himself out, taking all his stuff apart from his desk and computer. He says if I change the locks he will break in.

He is of the view that as the consent order says we are jointly responsible for selling it that he is going to be here as much as he likes.

I will have a look. He doesn’t own it, never has. He’s entitled to 50% of proceeds of sale as it is a marital asset but isn’t an owner-he had to prove that to buy the shared ownership housing association property he’s getting. He certainly had rights to live here when we were married but we aren’t now. If it were only for a short duration it’d be fine but I am very likely to be here for all of 2026 as a minimum.

Check with a solicitor but I’m sure it has to do with the wording in the consent order. Does it explicitly reference a right of access to the property? If not, and the only reference is to 50% of the proceeds then he has no right to be there.
You just need to be seen to not be obstructing the sale (I.e. allowing estate agents and viewers access, marketing it at a realistic price).
It also depends on exactly how much you need from the sale. If you can afford to go a bit lower to get a quick sale then I’d do that to be honest. Sometimes it’s a small price to pay for your sanity and freedom.

We’ve already dropped to the mimimum we can go to, already making a massive loss and any less I will be unable to buy. Given he paid precisely fuck all towards it that’s already galling (but obviously it is par for the course and I fully accept that part).

Thatched houses aren’t really price sensitive, they are valued very differently to “normal properties” and a large proportion of people won’t view them. It’s a case of waiting for a buyer that wants to live here- there will be one but there’s not going to be many as you get very little per sqm.

I will dig out the consent order but he claims a solicitor told him he has the right to stay. I am
sure there is no mention though. I know I could find one and ask but it’s more £

This is a screenshot, this is the only section that talks about the home.

We did the divorce ourselves so I’d need to find a solicitor to ask (we agreed to me keeping my BTL, keeping own pensions, own debts and just splitting the marital home. 50/50 custody-no maintenance). Which we were both happy with-I was main earner and he’s a financially reckless bankrupt. He’s done well out of it but it could’ve been far worse for me if he went after my final salary pension. There was full
disclosure financially so all “fair” so to speak.

I can’t understand why he is now being so hideous.

Bloody image under review….

If the house is in your sole name, he lost his automatic right of occupation when the divorce was finalised with the Final Order. He has no legal right to be there.

Change the locks. If he tries to break in, call the police.

Being entitled to share of proceeds vs the right to occupy are two separate matters.

being entitled to the money does not give him
automatic rights to occupy.
he is not and never has been an owner
the court order doesn’t specifically give him
rights to live there - just a right to monies

so unless there is anything in your consent order that specially states he has a right to occupy he does not, just right to share if money. Could be a bit of grey area if he’s always occupied it and the order did not remove him

I am not a lawyer, but I can’t see a reason why he would have rights of access. He doesn’t own the house, he isn’t name on the mortgage of the house, and he isn’t married to the owner of the house.

At a push, he might have a chance at access in order to have “joint conduct of the sale”. As long as you’re doing your best to sell (reasonable price, keeping it tidy, doing maintenance etc etc) then I think he’d struggle to get a court to grant him access.

I’d keep quiet until he has moved out, then change the locks. If he breaks in the call the police. If he instructs a locksmith then call the police.

Tell him if he wants access to YOUR house as part of the selling process the he’ll need to get a court order to that affect. I doubt he’d get one.

I think possession is 9/10 of the law in this case. It is easy to threaten to break in, far harder to do when you have a perfectly decent house of your own to life in.

You need to actually ask your solicitor too. That is what they are there for.

If all else fails, have plenty of people over to stay and visit when he is working and make sure to repeatedly open his door while yelling to your friends and family. After all, you have an equal right to that room if he has a right to be there.

Hopefully previous posters are correct. I would seek legal advice.
Failing that, can you stop paying for WiFi. Then he can't work from home. A pain for you of course but hopefully temporary

Make sure there's no parking on the driveway if possible, cut off electricity, make bad smells (put a rotten fish in the curtain lining?!) turn heating off, have neighbour play very loud music etc etc etc!! Get someone to 'redecorate the room and have in in dissarray for weeks, sell the desk.... oooh what about one of those devices to deter moles or mice that play a constant high pitched noise. Hide one of those in the toom and pretend you can't hear it.
Get a big burly male friend to pretend he's your new boyfriend and have him pretend he's working from there too?
I'm sorry you're going through this, he sounds awful.
I'm not trying to make light if the situation... I hope these suggestions will see him off!

Oh you definitely need to speak to a solicitor as from a friends divorce he has no legal right to be there as she was in v similar situation, he intended on staying in the property until it was sold too but her solicitor told him as per the order he only had rights to the proceeds from the house, not occupancy, and given his name was nowhere, he could either pay rent (with her agreement) or fuck off, basically. However, obviously I dont know the granular detail of that or your situation, but definitely worth the legal advice.