Property confusion years after divorce

[putsomethingontheendofit]

I was married to my ex for 8 years. Two years into the marriage, we bought a house.
I was SAHM to our child, mostly, but also worked part time. Of course he paid the mortgage.

The marriage was awful and I divorced him after a serious illness (me). I took nothing and asked for nothing. There was no financial agreement. He retained custody of our child for a few reasons related to my illness and said child is now 17.

For the past decade since we divorced, I have remained on the house deeds and my name is also still on the mortgage. Obviously I don't pay it. He now wants me to sign the house over to him legally, though, no idea why he waited 10 years since divorce to say this.

I was going to, because after all, he had custody of our child and I was a crap wife, so I feel guilty, but some of my family say I should ask him to give me some kind of financial settlement, and get proper advice. I don't know - are they right? Thanks to anyone who can comment on this. I still have poor health, both physical and mental, so it's hard to deal with.

I can't help much with this query as i have no legal background, but I just wanted to say please don't sign anything without getting legal advice. I am divorced and basically allowed my ExHusband to walk all over me in the settlement just to be rid of him. He got everything he wanted and I accepted it just to be rid of him in mine and our children's lives. I had no fight in me by the time the divorce was started. Please don't let yourself be taken advantage of as I did, it was your support that meant he could work to pay the mortgage. Please take legal advice and explore exactly what you are entitled to. Your poor MH will most likely mean that you are undervaluing your own worth.

Can you afford a solicitor? Is your divorce final?

Rth, yes, decree absolute 9.5 years ago. No financial stuff covered in it. Very basic Diy thing, like you 4cats I just wanted it all to be over and to go away - thank you for your nice words!

You need to sort out a proper financial settlement. Without it, if you come into money he can make a claim against you. I'm not saying he would succeed but it is better to have an order in place dismissing all future claims. You should see a solicitor who will be better placed to give you advice than random posters on the internet.

I'm no expert but since you never paid the mortgage and didn't retain child custody I would say probably a bit cheeky to request a pay off at this point - do you have a good relationship now with ex DH? If you go the legal route you may ruin any amicable relationship you've managed to keep and also your DC will likely be old enough to have an opinion and it could potentially damage your relationship with them also?

On the other hand your being there to look after your dcmeant that he was able to work to bring the money in so just because you weren’t contributing as much cash into the family coffers doesn’t mean that you weren’t contributing.

Also it wasn’t your fault you became ill - he could have been or one of you could have been hit by a bus. That’s why the marriage vows are for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. They’re not ‘I want all the good bits - the health and wealth - but you can sort your own sickness and poverty out. Also sounds like you got minimal loving and cherishing.

So yes I don’t think it would be fair to have something - if he wasn’t such a rubbish husband you’d still be happy together and it would still be a joint asset. Likewise he did step up to look after your joint dc which is good but he had to if you were ill. He didn’t step up and look after you.

So I’m not saying go for half or even a third but yes, you should have something out of it.

Have you contributed financially to your child? If not then I think morally maybe not but legally the starting point is 50/50 and work from there. Any ideas as to what you think would be fair?

Your poor health is the main reason you should ask for what you are entitled for.
Can you ask a law clinic or citizens advice for help?

If he got into arrears with the mortgage, would you be liable.

Morally, I would say just drop it. Legally you would probably have a claim. Most likely 50% of the value at the point of divorce or just 50% in general.

Have you been paying child maintenance for the last 10 years? A proper payment, not like £5 a week?

If you have, then you should get something for the time you lived in the house but 50/50 seems ridiculous. Just something because you looked after the child whilst he worked. If you havnt contributed equally to the cost of your child for the last 10 years then I think you should let it go. Your part of the house can be back pay for the costs 0f childcare he had etc.

I think you should be entitled to a 50/50 split for the years that you lived together in the house but nothing after that, although morally I wouldn't even be considering this as that house looked after for DC and so did your ex.

You could claim probably even half if not more of the equity in the house even if you have not paid any child maintenance over the years as they are separate issues.

Cheaper to reach agreement with him now than having financial court hearings but you definitely both need a court sealed financial consent order to sort out all the divorce finances ( assuming you are in England here - Scottish law differs).

You might even get more than 50% as you earn less than your ex but probably unlikely given he houses the child. You might want to consider using some of your share to pay the child's university costs as most student loans don't cover the full costs these days and the child is about to turn 18 in a year. Another option is to agree to some of the share due to you to go into the name of your child at age 18 eg house goes into joint nanes of the father and the child as a compromise but you do need to speak to a solicitor about it all.