My sister wants to sue me to for mortgage payments on our joint flat, even though I didn't live there

[Confused20232023]

My sister and I bought a flat together about 6 years ago (our parents helped us with the deposit if that matters) which we lived in together. About 2 years ago we talked about selling the flat because I wanted to move in with my boyfriend. My sister couldn't afford to buy me out so we agreed that she would pay the mortgage and all bills on the flat until we sold. We have this in writing on email and Whatsapp texts, and we also discussed this with our parents.

We eventually sold the flat (a whole story to itself!), and now my sister is saying that I should have paid the mortgage over the 2 years (when I wasn't living there), and is threatening to sue me to make me pay. Does she have a case if we have something in writing to say that she would pay all mortgage and bills while she lived there? I'm getting worried as we can't afford to pay her, and my boyfriend and I are planning on starting a family, so every pound counts!

We are in England.

And naïvely thought their little darlings would stay celibate and single forever, living together into old age?

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Or just didn't expect them to fall out and each try to screw each other over? Also, neither daughter would have benefited from the uplift in property value if they hadn't been given money for the deposit (I'm assuming they haven't asked for it back), so their opinion on what should happen to that money might carry some weight, morally if not legally.

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If you already have your money, pay your sister two years of the mortgage back, don't stiff her.

Yes she does. She hedged her bets, to boot, by moving in with a boyfriend yet having a place to come back to.

It was an investment property parents had jointly pai deposit for.

Of course she should have keptmortgage payments up.

AIBU? Relevence? I know this is legal. Thanks.

OP,
When you moved out you ceased to make any payments reducing the size of the mortgage on the flat. I also feel that from that date that you should also forgo benefitting from any further increase in value of the flat. It would be the decent thing to pay back a percentage of the 50% share of the sale of the flat to your sister.
You effectively left her in the shit to move out and be with your boyfriend. Which is fair enough but you shouldn’t also expect to get the benefit of the decrease in the size of the mortgage and the increase in the property value of that flat that happened over the two years you were not paying anything towards the property.
Now citing your need to start a family as another way to avoid behaving decently towards your sister. Your needs and wants should not always triumph over what is fair and right.
Also presumably you care about your sister, she must see you as very self centred.

The process of exiting the arrangement should have been made explicit at the time they bought the house. I can understand why people go into such arrangements given the current COL crisis, but it can only be a temporary arrangement and its unhelpful not to have got things clear from the start.

I used to be a conveyancer pre-kids and if the sale proceeds were not going into a joint account because of a split or a situation such as yours, we would always get both clients to confirm in writing how the sale proceeds were to be split. Both you and your sister presumably agreed the split when the property was sold so I don’t think your sister has any legal standing to now make a claim. Your sister should have spoken to you about this prior to the property being sold.

You sister should have got a bigger percentage of the equity when the flat was sold. This is to reflect that she paid the mortgage herself for two years and you contributed nothing.

When OP moved out and didn't force sale of property, she also became "in the shit" either by having to pay rent or by having to pay a larger mortgage as well as capital gains tax now. I doubt the sister would have been any happier if OP's boyfriend had moved in with them until the house was sold, which OP would have been within her rights to do.

Legally, if you have an agreement in writing that she would pay until you sold, she probably would not win in court. But if she sends a letter before action, you should see a solicitor to check.

Morally, I don’t think you owe her the mortgage payments. She agreed to paying. Keeping the mortgage going was not in your best interests at the time. She was relying on you being on the mortgage to keep the flat, to her significant advantage, when you would rather have sold. Then she took two years to sell.

Is there a reason she’s going back on the agreement now? Is she suddenly in a worse financial position than when she made the agreement? Have you had success financially that’s making her feel left behind? It seems odd that the two of you got on well enough to share a flat for years and now she’s turned on you a bit. Trying to work out what’s happening emotionally might make you see things a bit differently and help you salvage your relationship (assuming you want to).

If your sister did not want to sell and lived in the place by herself, it seems fair that she paid extra. If you were supposed to keep paying whilst not living there you could have rented out your room, would rent have covered your share of the mortgage?

I would say that unless the mortgage was more than rent would have been, she may have had a good deal.

It is always tricky buying property with friends and family though.

Simple she is right. You are wrong.

But then the sister should be paying OP interest on the value of the house that OP owned and could not realise and invest elsewhere because the sister did not want to sell.

@EasterFlower it's very unlikely OP will have to pay capital gains tax unless they made a ginormous profit on the sale.

Because you're talking as if it's a moral issue, not a legal issue, especially by using "should" as your reasoning. Legally the OP has done nothing wrong, whether you take moral umbridge with her actions is entirely subjective and everyone can have their opinion.

Mortgage payments were paid to the bank, liabilities fulfiled. The OP isn't liable for 50% of the mortgage payments, they were both jointly and severally liable for 100% and they kept to that with the sister paying the full amount.

Half the equity of the value of the flat - at its value when you moved out and she took over the entire mortgage. Your sister should then have the all the equity of any increases in that time. So if the property was valued at £100k at the time you moved out then you get half of that (minus mortgage/costs, etc.). If the property rose in value to £150k then she should be entitled to the extra £50k as she was the only one investing in the house at that point. She probably has a case, and morally you need to pay her what you owe her.

This. She was in affect renting your half of the flat...which she didn't pay you she just paid it as the mortgage. You could have insisted you both sell the flat once you wanted to move out, which you didn't. I would say she is being unreasonable.

Yes good point. They needed a proper exit plan drawn up before they made the purchase .

This should have been sorted before house was sold . I think it would have been totally fair for your sister to deduct your half of mortgage for last two years from your half of sale profits.

legally though I think you’re clear. Ask her for rent for your half of flats and you’d come out even.

she may or may not have a case - lots of other factors to take into account e.g. did you have room and belongings there? If not and no access other than occasional visitor then I doubt a judge would say that you owe that periods mortgage same as if a married person moved out of the family home they are not held liable for the mortgage if they are not in occupation.

You might also need help if the flat is sold and monies divided

Consult a solicitor don't rely on tinternet I say

@Whataretheodds is correct. It’s called occupational rent. In law, her sister is liable to pay the OP market rent for her half of the flat if she was living there alone - regardless of who pays the mortgage, and providing both names are on the deeds. The OP needs to take legal advice - case law suggests that if one party left voluntarily and stopped paying their share of the mortgage then it’s unlikely they would get a court order for occupational rent, however, if her sister sued her for the missed mortgage payments, I think occupational rent value would be factored in.

For those on this thread who are not lawyers (and there are plenty of you, based on the crap "advice" you've been posting), here is the definitive legal position (we are, after all, on the "legal" part of this site):

2 years ago OP wanted the house selling. Sister didn't want it selling at that time, so she agreed, in writing, with OP that she would pay all the mortgage after OP moves out until the house is sold. She dragged her feet in selling, but given the agreement they had reached, OP didn't force the issue.

The agreement did not alter their beneficial interests in the property. If that was the intention it would/should have been made clear at the time and also recorded in writing.

2 years later the house is sold. OP meanwhile has been prevented, by this mortgage, from investing in another property with her partner. This is legally irrelevant anyway, as they had a specific agreement that the sister would have sole occupation and for that she would pay all the mortgage.

This is what Halsburys Laws has to say about occupation rent:

It has been judicially stated that a court of equity will order an inquiry and payment of an occupation rent in any case in which it is necessary to do equity between the parties that an occupation rent should be paid. This will generally be so where one co-owner has ousted the other, but the fact that there has not been an ouster or forceful exclusion is far from conclusive.

Occupation rent is probably the wrong way to analyse this anyway - it is a tool of the courts of equity whereby a notional rent is inferred. In OP's case there is no need to infer rent, as there is an actual agreement to that effect (without mentioning the word rent - that is irrelevant).

Different people have different views of this. Morally I think OP is firmly in the right. She had an agreement with her sister. Sister should morally and legally be held to that. Had the value of the property dropped the sister would not have offered to bear the reduction entirely from her share.

Yes, the sale has already completed and solicitors paid us both equally.

No wonder your sister is now asking for your share of the costs. This is totally unfair and I don’t blame your sister. You are being mean.

Ypu need to have your share of the costs you haven’t paid taken out of your share of the profits from the sale. Anything else is completely unfair. It’s saying something about you that you don’t see this.