Parents divorce and sale of their house

[Bellpepper]

My parents separated 7 years ago, divorced 2 years ago.
My Father resides in the house they own together. My Mother wants to sell the property as my Father can not afford to buy her share. My Father has paid the mortgage solely for 5 years but it remains in both names.
My mother can not buy a new property (she currently resides with a friend and pays her rent) without the release of equity from her share of the house. My father however, refuses to leave or sell. I believe this is now making my mother ill.
I have stayed out of this dispute until very recently, but now there is talk of courts and solicitors.
Can my mother force the sale of the house? How can she get my Father to leave the property?

She can ask the court on divorce to order a sale. She'll probably get it, but there's a paucity of information. She needs to get advice from a solicitor.

So she should have really asked for this before the divorce went through and as one of the conditions then? As they are already divorced I suspect this now makes things harder.

No it doesn’t make things harder, but sometimes too much delay can count against someone. Not in this case though.