rights regarding property ownership if not married

[catkin14]

Please can someone tell what the legal rights of a couple who live together and are splitting up and are selling their home are.

What if one of the individuals paid in more for the property but the property is in joint names?

Thanks

If there is a declaration of trust that will lay down how much of the house each partner owns. In the absence of a declaration of trust the property would be split 50/50 unless it can be shown that there was a common intention for the property to be owned in different shares.

I would strongly recommend seeking proper legal advice.

Agree with prh's succinct overview. Unmarried couples are treated very differently from married, irrespective of length of the relationship and whether there are any children.

You may however wish to google Scedule 1 orders if you have children and your ex is fairly wealthy.

Thanks for help. I will get legal advice, I just needed some thoughts on a sunday night!

no children are involved, just 2 people who bought a house together but one of us put more cash in than the other although the other has paid all the bills..

Do you have copies of bank statements etc which would show who put what into the house?

Also check the registration at the land registration - tenants in common or joint tenants as if one of you dies tomorrow and it is joint tenants the other one inherits which you may not want. Also these days you can register at the Land Registry your % which may not be 50%.

I can't help re matters of law but JillyR2015 is right that whether you hold it as joint tenants or tenants in common can have an impact of one of you were to die. However we do not record the % shares but can record that the joint tenancy has been severed for example and a restriction registered. Details of the % shares may be included in the paperwork submitted but the specific detail would not be included on the register itself as the restriction in form A makes no mention of the %s

Ah yes. You used not to be able to submit the percentage share. Now you can but it like it does not go on the public register. So the advantage of submitting the percentage I suppose for people without any other paper work on percentage shares might be that that is some kind of record to check later when they fall out even if members of the public cannot search and see that Jane has 10% and John 90%?

Thanks for that. If you download the report can the other person tell you have done this?

catkin14 - the register is open to all so they are not advised that someone has checked and they can't log on and see who has either.
If they contacted us and asked for details of who had checked and when for example then under FOI we may have to advise them

JullyR2015 is right that such details can be submitted to us either on a form or as part of say the Transfer (the legal deed used to change ownership) but that is quite rare. In most cases the parties and the solicitor involved each have a record and the details may also be contained in any wills drawn up as these tend to be linked

catkin, the main issue is do you currently hold the property as "joint tenants"(nothing to do with tenancies) which is half shares each. If one dies the other automatically inherits the other half. OR as tenants in common - which means you own equal divided shares nad your half goes to your heirs. If you are joint tenants without the other person's consent you can "sever the joint tenancy" and make it tenants in common - which is usually best if you are likely to fall out so you can leave your half to whoever you want. However in either case you own half each.

If two live in lovers not married (marriage makes a vast difference) buy a flat together and are registered as half each but one put in more capital eg they had savings and the other didn't or a parent gave money then the starting point is always going to be still 50/50 each as they did not set up any documents or trusts to say it was different from that and it is always going to very hard to prove the normal 50% is not actually 50% because it is fair/equitable that it should not be 50%. Not easy. So best to take legal advice If you have emails from the time you bought or other documents showing you both intended the 50% to be different that will help you a lot. there are certainly cases where one person doesn't even own but paid the mortgage where the courts have found that got them a share - always pay the mortgage or house improvements rather than for the family's food - stuff like that when you have nothing in writing about shares, becomes important.

In future never buy with anyone without written contracts.