Post-divorce sharing of house issue

[BoffinMum]

This really isn't for me as I have never been divorced, but it's for a friend of mine who doesn't have any kids and therefore doesn't want to MN.

My friend got divorced about 2 or 3 years ago. She had bought a house with her husband for £92,000. It has dropped in value and is now worth about £70,000. The husband lives in the house and pays the £400 a month mortgage. At the moment she is living with friends in a single room, but is on the list for council housing and has now been offered a shared ownership house to buy for £60,000. She can't buy/finance this until she has got her name off the deeds of the other house. She filled out all the necessary forms in April but her husband has refused to do his bit. She is prepared to pay him her share of the negative equity if the building society agree to lend her that as well, but he is refusing to co-operate. She paid a solicitor £600 to advise her and write to the husband but he ignored that as well, and the solicitor has now closed the file.

My question is can she force him to sell the house? And how might she be able to resolve the situation without running up further legal bills? (She only earns £22k before tax so is not exactly loaded). Presumably he can't keep her dangling forever, given that there are no children.

Any advice very welcome.

A sale can't be forced unless there is a legally binding divorce settlement. Without a divorce settlement either party can potentially make claims against the other any time in the future. If the ex husband won't cooperate she will need to apply to court to get the ball rolling and it could take as long as a year or more to get a financial order and enforce a sale.

Good grief. I think she did her own divorce which was probably a bad idea. I have suggested mediation, which I don't think they have considered before. She is apparently going over there on Saturday to try to talk to him and persuade him to be co-operative.

Apparently it was on the market before, but he refused to be realistic about the price, insisted it went on at about £10k more than similar houses were going for, and they didn't get any viewings.

Grr... It can be a false economy doing divorce yourself. I've lost count of the number of people who don't get round to dealing with the finances or don't realise they need to.

I agree.

However am I advising her reasonably well in terms of trying mediation now? I know it's rather like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, but on the other hand I reckoned he was less likely to be really scared and more likely to go along with the sale properly if they tried it. Do you think this was good advice?

Mediation does not equate to legal advice.

Frankly IMVHO I think she wasn't very well served by the last solicitor she went to, who effectively seems to have charged her £600 for sending a fairly pointless letter and then closing the file, not moving things on at all. I do have friends who are solicitors I would trust and recommend to her, but they are all partners and very expensive - I am wondering how on earth someone gets decent legal advice to move the situation on when they only earn £300 a week?

What a mess she has got herself into.

Can I just add that she'll never get her name off the mortgage if there's negative equity. If the LTV is beyond the standard lending criteria of the lender she'll still not get released without the property being sold.
Pointless to pretend otherwise.

So she would have to find £11,000 to buy herself out of her half of the negative equity? Is that how it works?

Her ex has agreed to hand over her half and signed all the papers - they are with the mortgage provider now.