Can a court force mediation on separating unmarried couple - complete waste of time and money!

[sneezecakesmum]

My BILs solicitor has sent off a letter to his ExP (they have never married but been together 20+ years). The solicitor has agreed with what BIL wants and set this out accordingly - 50% of house and his own private property back.
If ExP doesnt respond in 7 days, the solicitor say she will take it to court. She told BIL the fees would not be high (in the 100s). Is this unrealistic, I thought around 2-3 K was average for financial settlements?

ExP says she will fight tooth and nail to keep the house even though she has no real legal leg to stand on. The solicitor says she can buy or rent and 16 yo DD can stay will her if she wants or go with BIL.

Q1 Can people like her play the legal system to escalate BILs cost in the hope he will cave in or are there penalties for not cooperating?

Q2 Can the court force mediation on BIL even though its a complete waste of time in view of ExPs escalating vindictive behaviour?

Q3 When it all goes to court what is the sequence of events and can DH and I be there to support him?

my understanding is if either party is getting legal aid tthey can force mediation to be tried.
if not then no.

fees are about 150 to file the issue at court.

if jsut TOLATA about splitting the property and selling it

if jsut going to a first hearing focusses the issue and it is all agreed then possibly can get away with hundreds.

however it gets technical and BIL will need a barrister.

you can go to the court public waiting area with him but if solicitor /barrister is inside the court room you wont be aloowed in. if he self represents one of you could go in as a mckenzie friend.

where is the dd residing? if she living with the mother then the mother could ask for some of his 50 per cent to house the daughter - but as she turns 18 soon this would only be for two years.

does the ex part own/joint own the house? is there a mortgage?
is the other property solely in his name?

could she buy him out of the property or does he want it sold?

No one getting legal aid at the moment. So no point wasting money on mediation. House is joint owned with outstanding mortgage of 50ish K. equity of 120K +
BILs solicitor suggests ExP can rent of buy. It should be straightforward but ExP has said she wants to keep the house and will fight. So probably looking at barristers She cant afford to buy him out.
DD resides with mother and BIL accepts that the house may be 'locked' for 2 years but his solicitor says ExP can rent or buy 2 bed apartment and as BIL is effectively homeless (room in shared house) thinks he has a good case for forcing the sale of the house. BIL wants it sold so he can move away from the area and put the money to a flat for himself.

No other significant assets. Looks like the court waiting area for us. !
Thanks for the information, looks like being a bit drawn out, expensive and stressful for BIL
thank you

Today, new regulations came into force with regards to family court and mediation. If she disagrees with aspects of the divorce, ie. finances or contact with any children, and he is forced to go to court, then he will have to attend a Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting. If it's obvious mediation wont work (ie. the ex wont attend or be reasonable) then they will be given the go ahead to go to court.

yes drawn out adn long if she disagrees - my exP also trying t keep a joint owned flat when he clearly cannot afford to do so or to buy me out. first hearing was sept 2010 - he didnt turn up. was given penal notice to attend in december. next was dec 2010 - he did turn up but with GP letter clining he was unfit. jsut had another directiosn hearing - has ahd a miracle recovery - turned up with a retired barrister friend as his mckenzie friend.
finally he had come to terms with one point - but have two days final hearing full scale set for june...

it will be much better if she has legal representation so that points of law can be argued - who technically owns what in law. my exP was self repping and came out with mad nonsense whch delayed things but was listened to and given his time as was self repping... yes is costly - but if i hadnt gone thru this process would still be back in early 2010 with no prospect of selling property at all.

so - long haul but only way i am afriad when one person is unwlling to engage...

omg sept 2010 til june 2011!!

She is going to come up with a load of rubbish but will have to get legal representation who I hope will put her right. She thinks because she paid the mortgage and bills (he paid for food, holidays, cars, furniture etc in equal amounts) that entitles her to a greater share of the house, but the deeds say 50/50.
choc does this mediation via the court (they are not married by the way) need to be paid for in addition to court fees? ExP has said she will deliberately waste as much of his time and money as possible - even though she will also end up paying costs.

If there is an order to sell the house and she refuses to let people view it I suppose the court will penalise her? more expense and delay!
Knew it was going to be bad

Thank you baby. As they will both be covering own costs hope BIL can avoid mediation because its going to cost loads anyway. Cut to the chase we say! His solicitor says he is in for a fight!

the issue is what each has paid since separation - somethig i leanred this week!

who paid what when tehy were a unit/couple is not worht arguing over (unless say she paid in an inheritance of 50,000 into teh mortgage or some cuch...)

what matters is who has paid the mortgage since separation?

has she paid an "occupational rent" ie the interest on themortgage?

cest The mortgage is being paid 'interest only'. Under those rules(unmarried couples) the person remaining in the house pays half the mortgage and the person who has left is paid a 'nominal rent' of half the mortgage by the person who has remained in the property.. This in effect goes to the mortgage! So BIL is entitled to 50/50 split even if it takes the next 10 years to sell the house.

Your ExPs 'mad nonsense' sounds familiar! BILs ExP is trying to persuade her grown up children to perjure themselves and say BIL wasnt living there for 8 years!!! Aarrgghh the woman is bonkers!

BILs solicitor as threatened to ask the court to make her pay costs if she messes around, and her equity will be eaten up too. I see what you mean though and think it is a strong possibility ExP will go down the same route. She is expecting her mother to die soon and will be getting a large inheritance which will pay BIL off. No idea of mothers health but fear for her life! BIL is a bit thick naive re court workings and I'm not sure he could cope with the details. Think ExP is definitely going to go down the stubborn route though but BIL would happily drop the price of the house, so tidiness for viewers maybe not an issue, just to get shot of her.

mediation is WAY cheaper than going to court over it. If they can try it then they should. Court will want to see attempt at it anyhow.
The 'order' will be phrased as an agreement. So in effect they will have to 'agree' at some point.
Also if she offers mediation and he refuses he will look like the difficult one.

His sol will say a lot of things. At the end of the day it's in his interest to prolong matters and have disagreements because the longer it goes on the more he earns. So he may say 'a couple of hundred' now, but he knows full well that if this is prolonged and ex is difficult he will earn a lot more than that in the long run

Oooh you cynic!

The cost would be in the thousands not hundreds, though any decent solicitor will try and reach an agreement rather than go to court.

Sometimes it's obvious from day 1 that mediation is unlikely to be successful, but everyone must give it a go these days.