Can ex claim on my property

[Oakleygirl]

My ex has contacted a solicitor about claiming a percentage of my property. The facts (I can prove) are:

1. He moved in and lived with me from a rented property.
2. He paid no "keep" for the first 22 months. 3)He lived with me for 34 months only. 4)He altered my property (blocked in 1 door way, removed conservatory doors and decorated so we could use lounge as a bedroom and conservatory as a lounge) in order that his daughter could have a bedroom. 5)He now claims the work he did increased the value of my house and is taking me to court for a share.

I had to get a full time job to support us (previously worked part time) and am currently still paying off the debt I accrued while supporting this sponger.

Has anyone had any experience of this sort of thing? Has he got a chance of winning his claim?

Swingofthings the gentleman in question can have no claim on property in law. It is not in his name and it was not bought as a matrimonial home. He is trying to say making this extra bedroom created more equity in the property, that would not stand up to scrutiny. Even if he was paying other person £1k s month, he would have no claim on the property, even if he married her and they were not just cohabiting the most he could claim would be half the increase in value since they got married, as it was not bought as a matrimonial home, hardly be worth the solicitors fees. So no claim, relax!

Swingofthings, that is not how the law works.

What's your qualification for claiming that it is?

Surely he has no claim.

There's millions of threads on here where women have been moving in with men, paying money into property they don't own and getting shafted in a split because they weren't married.

He's a freeloading piece of crap and sadly, I do think calling his transfer 'mortgage' wss his freeloading insurance policy in his head.

Exactly Maisy

If it was so black and white, there would be no need of lawyers would there be! They have been cases when people cohabitating but not on the deeds have managed to claim an interest in the property, so it does happen.

However, these were cases when they were able to evidence that they money they had given had gone towards the mortgage but more importantly, have done so for many years. This is not the case here, hence his chances are almost none. However, it is not just because his name is not on the deeds, that alone doesn't protect you.

His claim about the work doesn't have more chance though, that is if he could prove that it has indeed added to the value, which from what OP says is not the case, although it is what he is arguing for.

Yes, women get shafted, but they don't bother to go to court. No I don't have legal qualifications but I did seek legal advice and did a lot of reading about it before I moved in with my OH in his property and paid half the mortgage. This was on the understanding that we would be married within the next few years. Still as legally advised, I made sure to put on my monthly transfer that it was a payment towards the mortgage. As it is, we did indeed marry, so it didn't matter so much any longer.

There are also many posts on property forums about people asking how to protect their property when their partner move in with them because although indeed, they are more likely to get nothing in separation in court, it is in no way a done deal, with each year paying giving more chance of making a case of having gain an interest in the property.

Clearly, a year won't do it though!

Swingofthings Paying monthly into your partners account gives you tenancy right not a right to claim equality on the property. Also now you are married, it's not a 50/50 split as the house was bought by your partner before marriage it's only a 50/50 of the value it has increased since the date of marriage. It's was not purchased as a matrimonial property and if your not on the deeds of the property. I see woman on here assuming half the property is theirs because they got married, this is definitely not the case. It's what you accumulate during marriage that gets split.

Neweternal, you have already been told by a lawyer that that advice is incorrect. Please stop repeating it!

I have always known this to be the case. My brother was married seven years she had no claim on his property as it was bought before marriage and she wasn't on the deeds. She could have presumed what it had gone up in value but that's it. I have several friends that the same situation has arisen. Guys moved in married think they're entitled to half, very disappointed when it turns out not to be the case. So please enlighten me?

Not being on the deeds doesn't stop it being a marital asset.

There is no assumption in law that only the appreciation since marriage is relevant.

In some cases, courts will rule this way. In many others they won't. It is misleading and unhelpful to state they will.

Ok so it involves courts and great expense and uncertainty, but you might just get something? I get that.

Some solicitors so a free initial chat or you could call citizens advice if you want to have their take on it. Give you some peace of mind :)

As for taking the conservatory doors off, if you was to sell they would just ask you to pay for an indemnity clause to cover the new buyers, you wouldn't need to put them back

Why do so many people confidently pronounce on what the law is when they clearly don't have a scooby?

MrsBert It still stands that you would have to jump through hoops to claim (and no certainty) compared to if it was bought as a matrimonial home. I have never heard of anyone claiming previous capital in a property owned by person prior to divorced. I would be genuinely interested to hear of some. My mother signed over properties to us at a young age to avoid inheritance tax and this was always the advice given.

Ok Neweternal. How many divorces have you known about, intimately? Since your remark suggests you hear about a lot of divorces in enough detail to know about the financial details.

It still stands that you would have to jump through hoops to claim (and no certainty) compared to if it was bought as a matrimonial home

That applies to any and all matrimonial assets if the divorcing couple can't agree. There is no set % for either party. Every divorce is different.

MrsBert ok let see one case on google or otherwise, where someone had a claim on premarital assets? Not on what it's gone up in value, we all know that's pretty much an entitlement.

Neweternal you really should not give legal advice on here unless you have practised in this area. Anecdotal evidence is inappropriate in cases like this and I have already laid out the bare bones of how women can avoid being caught in this type of scenario. I will also add that owning property prior to a long marriage is not going to help in keeping it out of a divorce settlement. The property will in all likelihood be taken into account when reaching a financial settlement. The only possibility of keeping a property out of a divorce settlement is a pre nup, and sometimes a deed of trust and even then, if there are children of the marriage, a pre nup will in all likelihood not be helpful in keeping property owned prior to the marriage out of the settlement.

Where other person got a 50/50 split or decent split amount.

Ok. I've done, at a conservative estimate, 30 to 40 divorces a year since I started family law during my training contract in 1995. That's quite a bit more than googling one divorce.

I also spend a lot of time reading case law to keep current, and attend several training courses a year.

Do you see that I am well positioned so say you have little grasp of what is a reasonably complex area of law, and to suggest that you stop passing your opinions off as fact?

Para 42 and 43 White v White v clearly sets out this issue.

42 This distinction is a recognition of the view, widely but not universally held, that property owned by one spouse before the marriage, and inherited property whenever acquired, stand on a different footing from what may be loosely called matrimonial property. According to this view, on a breakdown of the marriage these two classes of property should not necessarily be treated in the same way. Property acquired before marriage and inherited property acquired during marriage come from a source wholly external to the marriage. In fairness, where this property still exists, the spouse to whom it was given should be allowed to keep it. Conversely, the other spouse has a weaker claim to such property than he or she may have regarding matrimonial property.

43 Plainly, when present, this factor is one of the circumstances of the case. It represents a contribution made to the welfare of the family by one of the parties to the marriage. The judge should take it into account. He should decide how important it is in the particular case. The nature and value of the property, and the time when and circumstances in which the property was acquired, are among the relevant matters to be considered. However, in the ordinary course, this factor can be expected to carry little weight, if any, in a case where the claimant's financial needs cannot be met without recourse to this property.

Let us not forget, White v White reached the House of Lords in 2000. There's another 17 years of commentary on that case, and that bit of that case.

Not least Miller & McFarlane.

But none of this, relating as it does to married couples, is of the least importance to the OP, who is not married. Happily for her!

Do be careful in future. There are a lot of men out there looking for a vulnerable woman with a house of her own, where they can move in and live the life of Riley.

MrsBert, I worked in conveyancing so know a little one somethings.

I'm not an expert in any means but I fail to see how the work he did would increase the value. You still have the same square footage, all he's done is remove some doors.
If he had built an extension or done a loft conversion I could understand it but surely the only increase in value would be because of market changes not the work?
I think he's bluffing, don't worry about anything until you actually get papers from the court. He's probably hoping if he scares you enough you will give him some cash to make you go away.

www.realistic.uk.com/common-myths-about-conservatories/