Help with this mess please!

[ExHHouseHelp]

Ok so longish story. Husband and I bought a house 10 years ago in joint names. It was a shared equity property where you have to pay the 25% back after 10 years. The marriage didn’t last and I asked him to leave after 2 years. He did and I stayed in the house with our then toddler. He paid maintenance and I paid the mortgage payments but could only afford the interest only mortgage. I meant to change it to a repayment mortgage but couldn’t afford it so now 10 years later i’ve still only paid the interest. The house is only worth the price of the mortgage and the builders now want their 25% which I don’t have! We haven’t divorced because exH agreed he didn’t want to force me and our child out of the house as the bank wouldn’t agree to take him off the mortgage. 2 years ago my new partner moved in. My ex has been pestering me for years to start paying some capital but I just can’t afford to, even with my new partner living with us. He pays for shopping here and there etc but doesn’t earn much himself. ExH is now getting difficult and saying the house needs sorting. He says he shouldn’t have to pay half the 25% the builders want because he only lived here for 2 years and I haven’t paid anything except the interest even though I said I would (just couldn’t afford to!) but I think he should have to as his name is on the mortgage. He wants to file for divorce now and says if we don’t come to an agreement on the debt it will end up costing a fortune in legal fees which of course I don’t want! Any ideas where I stand here and whether I’m wrong to ask him for half of this money?

Thank you

Thank goodness someone has finally come on here and spoken sense. You and the Ex entered into a contract to buy a house together. Legally you are both still bound and if there's money owing, you are jointly liable. The fact that there is a new man who moved in is irrelevant, a red herring.

You are Ex are both unlucky if the value of the house has gone down. The house will have to be sold and any money will then have to be used to pay off the mortgagee and the builder. You'll have to rent privately after that and both you and the Ex will have a debt against your name.

Never mind, people don't go to prison for debt these days!

@MrsBertBibby i thought only student loans remained after bankruptcy? my ex has time & time agin told me he’ll go bankrupt and his Csa arrears will be wiped

CMS arrears are not wiped.

Good to know

Hmm.
Couple on interest only.
He moves out.
Tells op to move to repayment.
Pays maintenance for child.
Where does the extra money come from for the repayment mortgage?

Should have been a joint decision if he stayed on it. If you'd moved to interest only that would be different.

If the ex husband pays for half the money as OP wants, then OP should move out and the ex husband should move in so he can live in the house for however many years OP was there and she can go back to paying full expensive rent elsewhere. OP doesn't want to turn the tables because she knows she wouldn't want to be in her ex husband situation... What a dick move from OP!

Sorry but I'm with @Monday55 on this. OP you are being very unreasonable towards XH

So do you have the 15k that's your half OP?

Not sure what all you AIBUers are doing on the Legal section. Apart from having a pop, obviously.

Not sure what all you AIBUers are doing on the Legal section.

What exactly is an AIBUer? Looks like you are being PA to me.

Itis an open forum where anyone can post wherever they wish. You aren't the thread police who can dictate who posts where.

@bastardkitty But it's not having a pop if OP doesn't have the 15k to pay her half of the 30k though, it's a valid point. Regardless of OP's financial/personal circumstances the past 8yrs, and if/or her ex-DH decides he's prepared to take on half of the money. If OP doesn't have access to her half then it's a moot point regardless.

But he clearly doesn't have the money either.

OP and her ex jointly contracted a liability with no repayment mechanism but the expectation that things would get better. Then the financial system crashed, because, it turned out, huge numbers of other people were doing the same. Leaving them jointly up shit creek when things actually got worse, and neither of them were able or willing to tackle the problem straight away.

Who got to live in the house doesn't come into it.

In AIBU, people are explicitly inviting opinions about who is right or wrong, morally.

In Legal, people, often in real crisis, ask for information about the law and what their options are.

The law doesn't give a toss about the OP's boyfriend, or whether she should have magicked £35K out of thin air.

Totally agree, @MrsBertBibby.

This board is for people who have a legal problem. Pearl clutchers should head off to AIBU and try and make people feel awful there with their moralising.

How are you going to afford to live in when you're having to pay full rent? If you can't afford interest only mortgage payments, you can't afford private rented unless you're moving into a hovel.

Legally you are both liable for the full amount. If you don't do anything they will chase him for the money.

As pp have said if you sold the house and were going to get some profit would you be splitting it 50/50 or saying because he only lived there for 2 years you should get more? It's the same the other way round morally

It's the same the other way round morally

Happily for OP, she posted on the Legal board. Not the board of subjective morality.