Divorce 1987 now property problem

[lateSeptember1964]

Out of the blue I have been contacted by a solicitor to say I am still on the freehold from a house that I had previously purchased.
The house formed part of a divorce settlement in 1987 which I had to give my ex. I signed everything I was given by the solicitor and got on with life

I purchased the house prior to marriage with my ex and then when still single purchased the freehold separately at a later date. The consent order at the time of divorce said I had to sign over the house. I did exactly that. The court documents are all hand written and don’t specify very much. Letters at the time confirmed I had complied with everything.

Now I am being hassled to sign over the freehold and in all honesty I’m just wondering do I have to after all this time.

Any advice appreciated

If you sold it with the freehold then yes.

Sounds like it is just signing a document that was missed 35 (😲) years ago. Why wouldn't you do it?
Separately, was it a good thing for you to sign the house you bought before marriage over to your exH in the divorce? What did you get?

You could offer to sell the freehold if you want or sign it over or just not sign stuff. How long did the original lease have left to run?

Have you been receiving a ground rent from the house since your divorce?

Speak to a property solicitor would be the best thing.

Did you get badly fucked over financially in the divorce. If yes then I wouldn’t rush to sign it over too.

Hi no ground rent received. Looking back now I was so young and the judge ruled I was young enough to walk away and start again. I’m sure that wouldn’t happen now. I will speak with a property solicitor but it’s such a hassle when life is busy

Or you could sign it and move on.

Or get them to purchase the freehold off you.

There is some poor advice on this thread.

You cannot re-open the divorce settlement. If the settlement said you must sign over the freehold of the house to your ex, that is what you must do. If you refuse to sign or try to sell them the freehold, your ex will be able to go to court for enforcement. You will lose and have to pay his legal costs as well as your own.

Of course, if the settlement only required you to sign over the lease to your ex, that would be different. If that was the situation, you legitimately own the freehold and can offer to sell it to your ex. But your OP implies that the settlement required you to give him the house. If that is the case, you should probably get a solicitor to check what you are being asked to sign, but you will have to sign.

What if it said “hand over the house” and didn’t mention lease or freehold, what then?

If the house was bought leasehold and the freehold purchased separately, it might depend on the wording of the court order as to whether the freehold was actually included in the agreement or not.

I would seek legal advice regarding the wording of the court order before signing anything over, as there is a slight possibility that you might still be legally entitled to own the freehold.

This wins the prize for the daftest response on this thread so far.

Well the judge didn’t sound like he had the judgement of Solomon did he “young enough to walk away and start again” and the lawyer who handled the property conveyancing should have spotted it was a leasehold property and who the freeholder was, so I’m not the only stupid person here.

@Collaborate if they were entirely separate purchases and the legal documents entirely separate, then the ownership of the freehold was never linked to the ownership of the house. It's definitely possible that the freehold was not included.

Interesting. I guess it does depend on the wording of the settlement. How much is the freehold worth?

The leasehold and freehold purchases were both prior to marriage. Both would have been included in the financial settlement. It would be surprising if the settlement required OP to hand over the lease but not the freehold. It was clearly OP's understanding that ownership of the house was to pass to her ex.

As for the solicitor "not noticing", we don't know if that is what happened. It may be that it was dealt with correctly at the time but some paperwork has been lost in the 35 years since, especially if the property is unregistered.

Just to add, OP says this was a consent order. The judge's role was therefore to ensure that the order was not clearly unfair. If the judge was happy, they would have simply approved the order without a hearing. The fact the judge made a comment in this case suggests they had concerns and asked some questions to clarify the issues. We weren't there so we don't know, but it may be that the judge needed to be convinced that OP was able to walk away and start again without needing any of the equity in the house.

What's the wording of the order? It might refer to the title number, or specify an interest.
Worth checking out as the freehold may well have a significant value.

I would respond saying that you will need to obtain legal advice and ask them to confirm that they will cover your legal costs. Either the transfer of the house wasn’t dealt with properly when you divorced or you are being asked to do something that goes beyond the consent order. In both cases, they should pay your legal costs.

Again this doesn't make sense one bit. An order that OP transfers her interest in 1 Acacia Drive to her husband includes whichever interest she had, whether that be leasehold, freehold or both.

It is highly unlikely OP is being asked to do something that goes beyond the consent order. If she is, she needs a lot more than legal costs. However, if she is only being asked to comply with the consent order, which is likely, any failure to deal with it properly was down to her and her solicitor. That doesn't give any basis for shifting her legal costs onto her ex.

Thank you all for your comments. To confirm it’s a hand written court order not a consent order as I originally said. There is no deed numbers and refers to the matrimonial home only. I was so young and when presented with the documents to sign to transfer the house I just signed and thought it was done. I think it’s become apparent as I can see the house is up for sale on Rightmove

There is a subsequent letter where his solicitor writes to who they believe to be the leaseholder of the property to inform them of the transfer of my part of the property from me to him. They write back and say we don’t own the lease we sold it. Then another correspondence where his solicitor writes to my ex to say the lease had been sold but no further questions or confirmation to whom. It’s all a mess but I will see a solicitor and just raise some questions on the back of this thread
I’ve since owned about 8 houses and this has never come up. It’s another thing on my to do list.

Not really relevant but I'm just nosey intrigued as to what you got out of the divorce financially and why you had to sign over the house you bought prior to marriage.

Not really the way these things work. If someone raises an issue 36 years after the fact it is not unreasonable to request that your legal costs for retrieving deeds and the file are covered. Any negligence will have been on the ex’s solicitor’s part as they failed to act in their client’s best interest by ensuring that the freehold was transferred to the ex.

OP has now confirmed that the house is up for sale - the OP’s ex won’t want to delay obtaining a resolution and potentially losing buyers by arguing about a few thousand in legal costs.

@lateSeptember1964 I would contact the solicitors who acted for you in 1987 as they will need to retrieve the file and the deeds.