I split up with my ex partner (we were not married) last October and moved out of the house that we jointly own, to rent a flat. I moved out with the two dc because ex partner refused to go, and also because I lost my job at the same time and was therefore able to claim housing benefit to live elsewhere which I could not have claimed to stay in my own house.
I had thought that we would wait for the market to improve and then sell the house and split any profit. Ex p has now informed me that he wants to stay in the house for good and by effectively buying me out now while the house is in negative equity, I'll in fact owe him money to take over the mortgage. He has run down the house to such a squalid state that I cannot see it being worth more than we paid for it while he still lives in it.
I put down the deposit for the house (though I naively did not safeguard this on the deeds) and I would like at the very least to get that back plus ideally a proportion of what I paid into the mortgage.
On the maintenance front he is sporadically giving me around £100-£200 a month for the two children. He earns £40k but claims he cannot afford to pay more than that. I would like to come to an arrangement to improve that but probably need to solve the house issue first.
I guess my question is, what are my rights here? I have appointments to see the CAB and a solicitor but I would like to have an idea as to how he can be encouraged to give me a fair amount for our joint assets (I left everything in the house).
Thank you in advance.