Surely he's not entitled to half?

[ohidoliketobe23]

Will try and keep this as short as possible!

My parents and siblings moved to another part of the country (UK) to be near us when I had DC. My gran was left behind with my uncle who she was a primary carer for. He has now passed away and she'd like to move to where we are.

She has been married for 45 years, but they've been separated but living together semi-amicably for around 15 years after he was found to be watching porn, meeting escorts etc (thats another story!).

My gran inherited £200k 7 years ago and paid off the £130k remaining on their mortgage. They had £70k in equity at that point.

Here is the problem: he's refusing to move (he's estranged from us so fair enough) and is insisting on her giving him half of the proceeds from the house (worth about £200k).

Would he be entitled to half, given that so much of the property was bought with inheritance? I had hoped he'd only be entitled to half of the £70k plus his contribution to bills.

Also: if they formally separated ie got divorced, would she be entitled to half his private pension?

He pays all the bills (£1200 a month) but he has a hefty private pension, while my gran gets the state pension and no more.

We need to seek legal advice but tbh we don't know where to start. If he gets away with half she's not got much to get a flat with and will likely end up staying with him for the rest of her life because of it.

Any advice much appreciated!

@ohidoliketobe23 @BananaHammock23 the fact that you are posting in 2 names is quite confusing.

But recent posters raise some good points. There’s lot that doesn’t make sense.

She inherited 200k and paid 130k off the mortgage. They had about 70k equity at the time. But the house is still worth about the same as when she paid it off? That’s unlikely.

She can’t always be bad with money if she tried or managed to get him to sign away his rights to the house, without a divorce. But also got him to continue to pay all the bills.

Where is the remaining 70k? Either she has spent it. Or sat on it while he pays all the bills. That’s not someone who is clueless about money. To manage to take an asset away from someone, while getting them to continue to pay all the bills while you save or spend 70k, isn’t someone who is clueless.

She may now either not remember what happened or saying she doesn’t really remember. But this doesn’t seem like someone who was clueless about money 7 years ago.

and you can’t all be clueless about the implications of marriage, surely?

The private pension will be worth much more than half the house equity, she would better off claiming her half of that than trying to reclaim her inheritance in the house equity. The only way to do this is a legal divorce with a financial settlement. Dont sign the final divorce papers (decree absolute) until the financial settlement is signed off by a judge as that would leave her a very unsafe position financially if anything were to happen to him. She needs a divorce lawyer.

So they live together, have mingled finances, and are legally married. In what sense are they separated, exactly?

In all honesty, if they've muddled along this long together, is an acrimonious divorce for people who are already starting to not be able to cope with daily life alone going to improve the situation for anyone?

I was thinking that. It’s not like he’s not made a contribution towards it, is it? She’s paid for the majority of the house. But he’s paid a hefty amount for them both to live in it. And of course he’s entitled to half, they’re married.

Sounds like someone needs to get power of attorney if she's starting to get confused and can't handle money.

You need to find the paperwork. Did they ever have a legal separation? If they did it changes everything. If they never had a legal separation then they are married, he can claim half the house and she can claim part of his pension. He has been financially supporting her by paying bills.

He’s entitled to half the house, she’s entitled to half his pension. Would she be willing to keep 100% of the house and he keeps 100% of his pension? If the pension is “hefty” most likely it’s worth more than £200k. That way they don’t need to involve lawyers and avoid large legal bills.