Help with divorce and property issue

[purplehat]

Hello...am hoping somebody can help.
Here is the issue:

Single Mum- 2 children aged under 3 years. Not so dear husband walked out 18 months ago. He is keen to be bought out of the marital home and only wants 20% of the equity which solicitor is saying is a good deal.

On the other hand....divorce is likely to happen in the next 6 months. Once this happens could he still have any claim on the property or equity held within it, despite the fact he has already been bought out?? I am concerned that he could be bought out yet still have a claim against the property!

Any help would be most gratefully received.
Thankyou

Anybody??

Hi purplehat. I was just about to post something similar. My lender won't allow me to take on the mortgage I share with my ex, on my own. However, I can afford the monthly payments. My ex is willing to stay on the mortgage to enable DS and I to stay put. Meanwhile, I pay the monthly payments and am paying my ex his equity. I too would like some kind of legal document drawn up to say that, by not paying the monthly payments and having received his equity in the property, my ex has surrendered all claims on any equity in the property in the future. This is particularly important to me because I plan to do some work to the house which may increase its value. My ex is on board with this; I just want something legally binding, because he can be changeable.

My IFA told me that it's increasingly common, in divorce situations, for legal ownership of a property to be transferred to the parent remaining in the home with the children, while the other parent remains on the mortgage. My lender had never heard of this and wouldn't entertain the idea, but yours might - worth a chat? Try speaking to an IFA too? I have now asked my family/divorce lawyer friend what she thinks about having some kind of agreement like this drawn up and who to ask to put it together - I'll let you know what she comes back with.

Thanks Rumbled

It's a complete minefield and hard to get proper, accurate advice!

Best of luck to you too

if you do this you MUST get a legal document drawn up , again you will need to check with the morage lenders most will want the morgage only in your name and your ex may want to get another morgage which he may not earn enough to get another morgage if attached to this one. otherwise 20% is a good deal its normally 40/60 split of TOTAL assets to the parent with care. DO NOT buy him out unless its in a legal document or he could go back on it at the divorce hearing be warned!

Kitty is right, you need to get a Consent Order. This is a legally binding document which sets out the agreement reached with regards to the financial aspects of the divorce. You need to get the divorce underway as the Consent Order cannot be approved by the Court until Decree Nisi has been pronounced.
sorry, in a rush as DC4 just been diagnosed with chicken pox but will try to pop back later with more info

You need to get a consent order to clarify what is agreed. If possible you need to get the legal title transferred into your sole name. However as others have said your mortgage lender may not release him from the mortgage if you do not have a regular source of income that would satisfy the lender you can oay the mortgage. This is so that they could pursue hm if the mortgage was not paid and the house repossessed and not enough money generated to pay off the mortgage.

If the property is transfreed outright to you then he has no claim because of the consent order however if the legal title is not transferred outright to you because of the BS then you must make sure the consent order makes it cLEAR that whilst you may still hold the legal title in joint names the 'beneficial title' [that is the legal jargon for who gets the dosh when the property is sold!] is held solely in your name, that way whenever this property is sold you get 100% of the proceeds and no-one has any claim on that property.

If he is on the legal title and he should die you do not want his relatives new DP thinking he has an asset that they can oursue. Make sure it is clear in any order that you are the SOLE BENEFICIAL OWNER.

Babiole

Sorry about some of the spelling mistakes.........sausage fingers and I did not edit the piece before posting!!!!

No. Once the transfer of the property has gone through (which will happen on the same day as you give him his money), the house will be registered in your sole name at the land registry.

Sorry, posted before reading all thread. Yes, you do need a consent order but as you have a solicitor on board they will insist that that is signed before the transfer goes through.

If you can agree a financial settlement between you a solicitor will draft a "consent order" which once ratified by the court dismisses any future claims either party can make against each other.

Strictly speaking it is possible for a court to ratify a consent order before granting the nisi, but as the order cannot become effective until after the nisi (or absolute when there is pension sharing) there isn't usually much point.

Hi again. My situation isn't quite the same as yours - in that I wasn't married in the first place so there's no divorce to go through, and also that even though I can afford the mortgage payments (I have a lump sum from my share in a jointly-owned business), I don't have sufficient regular income for the mortgage lender to be happy for me to take the mortgage on on my own.

In this context, my family/divorce lawyer friend has given me this advice:

"We do this [draw up a legal agreement to set out who owns any equity in the property] quite often with my clients if the mortgage provider wont release one party from the mortgage. What you need to do is instruct a conveyancing solicitor. [Your ex] is in effect selling his share of the property to you. The conveyancing solicitor will prepare the transfer documents transferring [your ex's] interest in its entirety to you. The document will then be registered with the land registry.

"It is very important you do this. Whilst the property is in your joint names, [your ex] is still a joint owner and can renege on [any verbal] agreement and ask for more money in the future should he wish to."

My friend also mentioned something about there being disbursements to pay, which doesn't make any sense to me, but I'm sure soon will!

I hope this helps.

Hello,

I need some advice. My e and I divorced 3 years ago after is walked out on my new born daughter and 4 year daughter 5 years ago. He only started paying maintenance when the divorce went through and we did not split the property as the lawyer said that divorce would take to long.
He left us with debt of the gas & electricity bills and did not contribute a penny towards the mortgage in over 6 years. In fact all he did when he lived with us was pay the gas and electricity. He was also abusive and we had to leave the country for a couple of years to get away from him and his girlfriend. Now he wants 50% of the property. He still does not contribute towards my girls education or medical and does nothing extra for them all. I have to go from job to job and country to country trying to earn a decent salary to give them the best I can. Do I have any rights from stopping him getting 50% of this property?

As you did not sort out a financial settlement when you divorced he is entitled to claim. However, that does not necessarily mean he will get 50% of the property. You need to get proper legal advice. Consult a solicitor.