Share of property for someone who only paid for 2 years.

[Whydidimarryhim]

I have a friend who lived with a man approx 23 years ago and they bought a house together, both on deeds. They had a child together whom he never saw once he’d left.
He appears to having lived between uk and another country in this time. He has not contacted her or his daughter since leaving. He was very abusive but she never reported him.
He left after two years and only contributed for two years.
The mortgage is due to finish in Feb.
His daughter has now left home.
She has two other children one 9 and the other 12.
She’s an unemployed single parent.

She has become very worried he’s going to come and ask for his share.
She went to see a solicitor who was very direct.
She told her she would need to pay him 50% - she doesn’t have this - that she would need to sell and that she could buy a part rent part own property.
Given he only paid for 2 years would this be correct?
The property was £64,000 and is work around £400,000 - London.
Has anyone got any experience of this.
Thankyou.

Were they married?
He’s still on the deeds and the mortgage?

No not married and yes he’s on the deeds. Thanks Veuvelily

Joint tenants or tenants in Common? Your mate has basically bought part of a house for an ex. She won’t be able to sell without him being involved unless by chance they were joint tenants and he predeceased her. How in the name of all that’s holy did she let this happen? She never changed lender over the entire term of the mortgage? Jesus

I would tel her to seek legal advice

Euro she is very vulnerable actually. She has been abused all her life really.

The solicitor was absolutely correct.

If she’s paid off the mortgage she’ll get credit for that.

The solicitor is correct. The mortgage she paid is seen in lieu of rent for his half. He is still entitled to his asset.

Wow I’m shocked - after just 2 years he would be entitled to 50%.
I will let her know. Thanks all.

Yes he'll be entitled. An ex of mine bought a house with an ex partner. She never contributed a penny and never actually lived there as she was caught cheating before they moved in. The house was then put into his name only. About 15yrs later he received a letter from her solicitor demanding a share in the value of the house. He lost the case and had to remortgage the house to pay her off.

As your friend's house is in joint names, I don't think she'd be able to legally get out of paying him if he came asking for the money.

@Whydidimarryhim

Wow I’m shocked - after just 2 years he would be entitled to 50%. I will let her know. Thanks all.

It’s not because he lived with her for 2 years. It’s because he owns half of it. He could have lived with her for a week or for 20 years and he’d still own half.

I have had experience of this with my ex.

He owned a house with his ex wife, one child. She had lived in the house for around 10 years and he had lived there for 2 before they split. ExW wanted the house signed over to her, EX wanted some equity as he paid the deposit and the full mortgage payments for 2 years before he left.

It went to court and this is what happened - The ExW claimed for her payments to be deducted so say the equity was £10,000, her payments were £2,000 so the pot should only be £8,000.

The EXW tried to claim the full 8 years but for 6 years she was on benefits and the state was paying the mortgage (this was over 20 years ago and the government used to pay interest on mortgages before anyone jumps on me) but the judge ruled that they could not be counted but her 2 years of paying the mortgage herself were taken into account and deducted from the pot.

Your friend could try this, taking her payments into account and reducing the pot. It will be down to the judge entirely and they tend to make their own rules up.

The crucial point in LemmysAceCard post is that her ex was dealing with a settlement after divorce. The OP's friend was never married to her ex. Legally, that is crucial. It means the experience of Lemmy's ex is completely irrelevant. The law for unmarried couples is completely different. In the situation described by the OP, her friend's ex owns 50% of the house.

@prh47bridge

The crucial point in LemmysAceCard post is that her ex was dealing with a settlement after divorce. The OP's friend was never married to her ex. Legally, that is crucial. It means the experience of Lemmy's ex is completely irrelevant. The law for unmarried couples is completely different. In the situation described by the OP, her friend's ex owns 50% of the house.

Actually the Ex and his partner were never married, i put EXW as it was easier to say than my ex and his ex, just sounded easier to put EXW, so they were never married and so my ex's experience is not irrelevant and happened in court.

She can argue that she should get credit for the repayment portion of the mortgage that she paid. He can argue that he was within his rights to charge an occupation rent and this can be offset against the mortgage payments that she made.

She really needs to get some advice. These sorts of cases can be long and expensive if not settled out of court.

Did neither of them discuss what would happen with the house at the point they separated?

I would get the house assessed asap to have a starting point for discussion. When someone leaves when they are on the mortgage it is advised to get a house valuation at that point.

Would she be able to claim that his part went towards paying for dd? As assuming he didn't pay maintenance?

(I am not a lawyer)

@Atalantea

Would she be able to claim that his part went towards paying for dd? As assuming he didn't pay maintenance?

(I am not a lawyer)

No (I am a lawyer).

@Collaborate

thanks

There is a Supreme Court case that deals with this sort of scenario: Jones v Kernott. There, the woman ended up with 90% and the man only got 10% because the court held that their intentions had changed over time. They had split about 15 years prior and he then came back asking for half.

Therefore, I don’t think it’s as straightforward. The starting position is that he has a half share (if they don’t have a deed of trust saying exactly what he gets). If she’s arguing that he should get less, she has to show that there was an intention between them that the shares should be other than 50/50. The fact that he’s not contributed to mortgage or repairs since he moved out (nor paid child support, which is something mentioned in Jones v Kernott too) could be evidence of this intention.

These cases are high risk because if you lose, you pay the other side’s costs. Therefore mediation might be an option if he comes back. However, she will need to give him something, although I don’t think I would have advised her to hand over half, given the circumstances. That means that she probably will need to sell at some point.

If he hasn’t come back yet, she could sit tight and hope it doesn’t happen for a while but it will come at some point and it certainly will if he dies.

Jones v Kernott involved them cashing in an insurance policy to buy the excluded party a house which he then intended to keep 100% of while claiming 50% of the marital home. It doesn’t seem to fit the scenario here.

Yes although the insurance policy was not necessarily instrumental, as the question was what their intentions were. When they split, the intention was 50/50 (even though he bought the house) but over time that was held to have changed and they specifically mentioned his lack of contributions, including child support. Note also that the policy was not given entirely to the man- they split the proceeds between them. I still think it’s potentially arguable: house bought to live in and bring up family, guy leaves the family and contributes nothing for over 20 years, woman makes all payments. I think there’s an argument that his lack of contributions can be used to infer a change of intention as to ownership. Also, as the court said in Jones, it’s likely that the woman wouldn’t have been liable to pay the man occupation rent during such time that the house was used as a home for her and the child. So the person who raised that isn’t necessarily entirely correct.

As the child is over 18, she has lost out on making a Schedule 1 claim which could have seen her getting a chunk of his share of the house. If she’d made a Schedule 1 claim together with a TLATA one when the child was under 18, she would probably have ended up with more than half.

I would advise your friend to get a second legal opinion from someone who is an expert on this. She could even go to a public access barrister and pay a few hundred quid for some one-off advice. I think given the circumstances, I’d hesitate a little to just hand over half to him without argument.

Thank you all I’m going to pass your input to my friend.