Hi all, I'm hoping for some advice. I'm out of ideas and so is my solicitor.
I'll try to give as much information as possible. Sorry, this is a long one!
I separated from my partner 2 years ago. We have a joint mortgage and 2 young children. We only had the mortgage for 1 year before I ended the relationship. He did not want the relationship to end.
We agreed verbally that I would stay in the house with the children after we both spoke with the mortgage advisor as he wouldn't be able to continue the mortgage on the house in his name only but I could. Having only been in the house a year I wasn't attached to the house but I wanted to maintain some sort of stability for the kids.
Anyway, cue 6 months of post relationship abuse while he remained in the house, I'd offered him time to stay while he found a place to buy or rent. During this time when I was reviewing my finances I realised he hadn't been making his contribution to the mortgage which was coming out of my bank. When I brought this up he said he thought he had set the direct debit up ages ago. I guess it's my fault for not checking but I trusted him so didn't. Lots of arguments followed over this and he eventually gave me his contribution for 1 month!
He didn't view a single property in this time and 6 months after ending the relationship and enduring his emotional abuse I lost my shit and practically forced him out the door and had the locks changed as he refused to give me back the keys. I'm glad I changed the locks as the next day he came back whilst I was at work trying to get into the house (he had all his stuff already).
Anyway, ultimately he got accommodation through his work.
The issue is with the mortgage and the deeds which are in joint names.
He won't engage in any attempts to deal with this. I've tried mediation - he agreed to this, dragged the process on and then didn't engage in the actual mediation. So I got a solicitor, they've tried the agreement of separation but he either sends ridiculous responses or doesn't respond at all. He won't get his own solicitor and he keeps saying he'll sign the mortgage over if I cancel the child maintenance. Now child maintenance cannot be dealt with through solicitors and court, he's had this explained to him so many times but it doesn't make a difference (his wages were arrested due to non-engagement and there's an upcoming tribunal for this also due to declaring a false wage). We tried court but as we were not married, the only option the sheriff would have is to order the house to be sold on the open market. I can't afford to do this as I don't have any funds to offer over asking price and the village where I live houses don't not come up for sale often so I'll lose the house.
Because of this I can't remortgage the house, because I don't have his permission so I'm on a variable rate, my mortgage offer which I have had will save me £250 a month.
I've offered him cash (all done through the solicitor) and he's still not engaging in discussions.
For information, there's next to no equity in the house as we had only lived there one year, I paid the deposit. The value has gone up £5-10k but we put new windows and doors in for £12.5k which was paid through a bank loan in my name.
Has anyone been through something similar and have any advice? Both me and my solicitor are out of ideas other than to sell the house (which will be another nightmare) and the kids would have to change schools as there's no other houses selling in the village or surrounding villages. The other option is do nothing, which means continuing on a variable rate mortgage with him still on mortgage and house deeds and hope he's willing to engage in the future however he would be entitled to increases in equity for doing nothing.
I know this is all about control.
Please help x