Selling property after separation UK

[DaisyDooxox]

Hi all. I am 26 and bought a house with my ex partner three years ago.

We saved up for the deposit 50/50 and both names are on the mortgage and deeds to the property.

We both did lots of renovation work on the house, so now we are coming to sell the house it has quite a fair bit of equity.

However, my ex partner is now saying that I owe him £30k for renovations that he paid for from his inheritance. I was completely not aware of this agreement and have no idea if this ‘investment’ figure is even true.

This could mean me walking away from this with £30k less than him.

I don’t see this as being fair - especially when he seems to have just plucked this figure out of the air and I’ve been completely unaware of this throughout the three years we lived together.

Has anybody else been through this and can advise me? Where do I stand legally if I refuse to give over £30k to him?

Thank you.

Does he have receipts for the work he paid for/can he evidence it?

Do you have receipts for the work you paid for?

If the property is owned 50-50 shares (joint tenants) then you are owed 50% of the equity upon sale.

If he’d wanted to ringfence £30K then that needed to be done by being ‘tenants in common’ of unequal shares when you bought it. Or otherwise having a signed agreement with you that he could produce in evidence.

You won’t need to give him £30K.

Unequal contributions of capital might have the effect of altering the beneficial interests, but there would usually need to have been an agreement or understanding at the time those contributions were being made. And he'd have to prove the payment of £30k. You probably need to engage a solicitor for some preliminary advice. I suspect though for the sake of getting an extra £15k it's not going to be worth his while litigating over this.