difficulty dealing with divorce and hosue decisions and relationship breakdown

[WorthyHelper]

Hi all,
I just wanted to seek some advice because i've been in divorce proceedings with my spouse since last year. they left me after one year of marriage in the spring and then in the autumn i filed for divorce. however their behaviour has been very erratic- we still have freuqent communciation and it has been really rally hard to sort thigns out and come to a reasonable conclusion to things.

they have been back and forth in my life since the split - coming back every few weeks and saying they want to give things another go but things never last before the next big argument. in the autumn they removed the mrotgage direct debit causing me to icnrease my contributions from the proportional amount i was paying in line with my wages propertional to theirs and made me do 50% of the mortgage for the last 9 months. last month i paid all the arrears off and the full contractual amount whilst they didn't pay (and this happened because im not good with maths and got confused) - so now they wont repay me that amount.

my solicitior has said that with a short marriage i'd be looking at a return of my 30k deposit but ive made over 5k extra in payments (mortgage overpayments over my original propertional agreed amount, council tax and bills). in total i put 47k into this house. my spouse is saying there was no formal agreement that i would pay a set amount and they do not want me to get my deposit back because the house was bought in my hometown and therefore they are only offering me 26k as my final compensation to buy me out. my solicitor says i should accept but im not happy about this because it's losing a lot of money - 9k at least. however the solicitor said the altenative is court and the costs to litigate would far outweigh the equity.

secondary to this im really upset with things as a whole. ebcause he keeps coming back into my life it is so hard to grieve and move on. im 36 really want children and am devastated at the loss of having to start over and having to find someone else and really feel like the clock is ticking. this feeling then leads me to think whether we shoudl try again and the spouse then syas we can try for another month after the finances are sorted and ive signed the hosue over to him for the 26k but im so stuck

can anyone give their perspectives on this . thank you in advance.

hi - this sounds tough, I lost £10k on the house resale when I divorced my husband after 12 months. So if you can move on with £26k I would take it and not look back. Can he realistically afford any more?

So sorry to hear that you are going through this. Firstly, lay down some strict boundaries with the stbx trying to win you back - it will only make the healing process even harder.

As for the 9k, I know it sounds like a huge amount of money but in the long-run, would it be better for your inner peace and to be able to move on if you accepted it? Most separated couples lose money on the house in a split, it's almost inevitable unless you are really lucky. Then you can cut all ties with someone who sounds like they don't really care about you or deserve you.

36 isn't old in the grand scheme of things and you can eventually get on with your life and lead it as you have dreamed of. Hang in there.

he can afford a lot more - he earns 3x my salary but he is rerfusing to budge and is insistent that i need to take the loss as he has to own a house in my hometown rather than the city where he is based. he can be quite manipulative and some of his behaviour is financially abusive but essentially he has said repeatedly that he doesn't see why i should get my money back when i have parents who will give me an inheritance vs him who will not have an inheritance - this is a horrible perspective but he's refusing to budge really... i just feel so scared from it all. to have put 47k in and lose 25k of that feels horrific

Its not necessarily as simple as every penny which was put in. What is the value of the house? What is the equity and what is left of the mortgage. Did he put any deposit down as well? How was the mortgage split before the break up?

I understand, well just take him to court if you can afford it, he sounds awful. There is no guarantee you will receive inheritance, your parents might split up, leave all money to a dogs home , spend it all etc.

btw you sound well rid of him, please do not entertain getting back with him.

i accept that i've got to take a loss but my concern is twofold. one ive racke dup massive legal bills and not got very far with whilst he is unrepresented and doing his own thing which makes coming to a reasonable settlement harder.

the house was bought for 520k, mortgage 408k. he put 111k down and i put 30k. he is proposing 26k as a method to buy me out of my 50% share where he then takes full ownership - he is plannign to rent it for a few years and sell in the next 5 years. before the split he paid 66% and i paid 33%

the problem i have is that by taking him to court, which will cost approx £20k we are arguing over little equity so im not sure i will be better off by litigating and that is the principle the solicitor is going by.

Oh I thought you were going to keep the house, 408 + 111 + 30 =549 maths seem abit off.

these figures include second rate stamp dut of 36.5k. and no he wants to keep the house to buy my share out of it

Ok so 549-520=29 so 14.5k each for stamp duty, I would probably take the £26k looking at the maths. But I would expect him to pay for all solicitors fees and mortgages fees for getting you off the house liabilities. What is the house valued at in today’s current market? If it is above £520 I would be asking for more.

it is a very short marriage so I would imagine that if it went to court they would only look at returning what you put in which £26k covers, stamp
duty is just dead money.

If it was to go to the open market, you would not get stamp duty back.

thank you for this. it was valued at 535k but the only offer we had on it was 510k. it has just been really hard to stomach this level of loss tbh. its been a lot for me to cope with and i feel so let down and so scared about thefuture but then i guess that is the price of divorce...

Maybe I mis-read at the end but sounds like he is blackmailing you to accept a poor deal?

I know, I understand you went in to this hoping for a family and future and it just hasn’t happened 😢 I get it! But on my second home that I bought alone I made £25k in 18 months it was a new build. So I kind of made it back. 😃 ex husband went off with another women and then after he married her and had children he ran off with her best friend 🤣 very lucky escape for £10k loss xx

I would however just take solicitors advice x

There's no legal obligation for the mortgage to be split according to salary, he would have been advised to insist on 50/50 if he'd had legal advice. Assuming the value hasn't really changed, if it was put on the market you'd be splitting estate agent and legal fees.
Honestly, as galling as it is, I would accept and move on.