Seperation

[watsmyname]

A bit of background about my friends situation. She has a lb and her partner left when he was 18months. They had just bought a house - equal contributions to the deposit. When he walked out he ceased paying the mortgage or anything towards upkeep but does paid a certain amount of child maintenance.

He has put pressure on her to sell the house since but she has resisted for a number of reasons including it is their sons home and he would have to move school if they moved and the mortgage repayments are cheaper than moving to rented accommodation.

The ex manipulates regularly by changing agreed plans, makes comments about how she looks after her son, gives a wall of silence occasionally, changed jobs but refused to tell her what it was even though it affected times and money for lb. He tries to get her to give up her work to claim benefits so would have less independence because 'that's what everyone does'.

He told her if she could gather a certain amount of money and organise a mortgage then she could buy him out. She got it sorted (with a lot of difficulty as she is now a Single mother who works two jobs) but he has now asked for more money or no deal.

Does any one have any advice to deal with this as I'm stuck for advice.

Genuinely I know she is trying to make life reasonable (but sometimes does bite back - she is human).

She can force a sale whereby one buys the other out. The problem is that if he still refuses then she will start incurring legal fees which clearly she is not in a position to pay.

One option is for her to threaten not to pay the mortgage which will mean the bank will repossess but that means both of them will have their credit ratings wrecked so a high risk strategy

I am guessing she wants to buy him out. So he is entitled to 50% of the equity. Have they had the house valued and identified what that is?

It is likely that your friend feels she should get more, which she might if they were married. They are not. There is a lot of unfairness associated with this but legally the position is clear. They jointly own the home 50/50.

She may also feel that he stopped paying half the mortgage then she is entitled to a bigger share of the equity. This is arguable. She got the full benefit of the home not half of it. He was deprived of his home and had to secure somewhere else to live. Probably at a greater cost or of a lesser standard. As you point out renting is more expensive than the mortgage. She has had this benefit . He has not. She has deprived him of equity and ability to buy a property of his own. I think she has a hard case to prove if she feels this.

He can force a sale, but it will cost money. For both of them.

If she is offering less than 50% of the equity she will need to justify that. She also needs to agree a value of the property with him. They should each get a valuation done.

@MarieG10 he knows she won't default as this would stop her getting credit/a mortgage in the future.

@LemonTT they had the house valued and it has remained static since they bought it. She had to put a new bathroom in as it leaked and was the only one in the house. He refused to contribute.

When they agreed that she would buy him out he stated a figure to settle the sale but he has no increased it. She would be saving him significant money in selling costs by buying him out. He is definitely being dick because she may actually have been able to sort it out.

He moved to a house his father owns (rent free) and so didn't have any concerns about living arrangements. I do try to be objective but surely when he walked out and has made no attempt to keep up with his responsibilities he shouldn't have all the say?

Her mortgage repayments are cheaper than renting but she is just paying part of that to him really, as one day she will have to give him half the equity. Call his bluff maybe? If house gets an offer that means he gets less, she can make him her offer again?

I think both you and your friend need to set aside your issues with his behaviour as a partner and lack of common decency as a human being. Mainly because you are buying into his goady behaviour that allows him to stay in her life. This is just going to get messier for her.

She needs to deal with this in a purely legal and rational manner. He is not married to her and has no obligation other than to pay child support. As you have said he is doing this.

In terms of the house, the fact that he lives in his fathers property is not the point and the money he saves is not her business. The property is not cost free anyway, his father is paying for it.

She owns 50% of the home but occupies 100%. At her choice because she refused to sell. That doesn’t come free and most people agree that the cost is equivalent to 50% of the mortgage costs. So putting it very simply. Yes he owed her half the mortgage payments but she equally owed him half the cost of living in the house. So it nets off.

A leak in a bathroom doesn’t need a new bathroom. Arguably it needs a repair. He owes her something for that but a new bathroom can be very cheap so it’s not worth arguing about.

So, again she needs to go through the motions of getting independent evaluations and allowing him to do the same. They should agree how these will be used to agree a value for her buying him out. Then she should offer him 50% of the equity. If she is not doing this he will never agree to the offer. She’s not incurring sellers fees so it can’t be used to reduce the figure.