Going against a consent order

[DietTangoAddict]

Desperately need some advice to settle my brain, I'm going to speak to my solicitor but in order to get some sleep, riddle me this...

Consent order is with the court and about to be finalised. Property wise it details that out house is to be sold for £400k, STBXH gets 11% of the equity and I get the rest to pay off marital debt, all the legal fees, ERC on the house and load of other (fixed cost) bits that mean I end up with roughly the same as STBXH. Everybody happy.

However, the house has been on the market for 6 months and is not shifting! We've lowered the price and lowered the price but now we need to look at taking it off the market which means we won't sell before the mortgage deal runs out. There wont be ERC to pay when we do sell it in that situation but my mortgage will shoot up to being unaffordable every month (he hasn't contributed to it since he moved out 18 months ago). My question is what do I do now? If I sell for less, he will walk away with more than me to the point that I won't have enough to be adequately housed (with 3 DC) and he will! If I don't sell, i will lose the house as I can't afford the mortgage. The consent order has been closed by the court now, so can't be amended.

What can I do?

Your solicitor should surely have thought of a scenario whereby it became difficult to sell and added something in the consent order for that.

I can’t see a way out for you here. If you’re prepared to take the benefit of property prices rise you must be prepared to take the hit if they fall. It’s not unforseeable.

Still, speak to your solicitor whose knowledge of your case is not limited to what you have posted.

This seems like a weird deal- so he gets 11% of the house sale/ you get truest but have to deal with all the debts? Why do you not deal with the debts and both be given a set amount- you having to deal with all the debts and pay off everything should be a joint issue, with you getting then a certain amount, juts like he does surely?

Are you sure it doesn’t say that he will get 11% of whatever is left from the sale of the house less the debt? Regardless of what you sell it for? Because if it said the house has to sell at 400K that’s madness!