how can I get him out of the house? advice please.

[strangeitude]

I told my boyfriend he could only come back and get his stuff - he had gone to stay with a friend and wasn't surprised (I had actually told him to get out before this).
He said he would come on easter day (!) to get his stuff then turned up 2 days early blaming public transport. So then he seems to have one thing after another he needs to sort out - this could go on for months (I wasn't born yesterday and have had a lot of boyfriends / lodgers etc before). I waited till he got the MOT on the car and told him to be out by noon tomorrow (unlikely I know but better than having him wait till 10pm or something). Anyway of course he is being as difficult as possible saying I have no right to make him go and I'll have to get the police. I don't see that waiting 'a few more days' will make any difference at all. It's 3 weeks since he was told to get his stuff and not come back, and 2 months since he was first told to go. He is going to whine about his driving licence (which will take at least 2 weeks) and so on and so on.

I own the house, he doesn't. I am looking everywhere for legal advice but it's all too vague. HOW can I make him leave? It could get very nasty and go on a long time if he forces me to take him to court to get him out - and I really think he's a nasty weasel or I wouldn't be chucking him out. He is saying he has a right to stay as he has worked on the place, but the builders who came round while he was away were horrified and thought it looked like he has deliberately f*ed me up as much as possible to create more "work" for himself (ie I could never throw him out - the builders' opinion was that he HAS to go or the house will never be finished and I will be broke). He of course would say he has vastly improved it etc etc you can guess the rest - and in another breath he says if social services came round they would take my daughter away.

I can't wait for weeks for him to get his act together! The house needs a LOT of work to make it habitable by next winter and there is a kid here for gods sake. No builders can come and fix anything until all his crap is gone and I can clear up - they said in their opinion it would be worth me paying £2000 to get his scrappy bloody cars towed just so there is space for all the builders stuff!

The builders are friends and giving an honest and brutal opinion, btw.

Call the police, tell them your expartner is occupying your house and refusing to leave, tell them he is intimidating you and refusing to leave. They will remove him.

but they will want to know in what way he is intimidating me and certainly having had experience of genuine domestic violence / police situations that would be difficult to persuade them of as he hasn't made any threats or anything. Or is it one of these things where just because I said some particular phrase they HAVE to act even if they think there are no grounds? (I came across this phenomenon with social workers). It would be a big cringe but I'd say it if I had no other choice.

Also it's a bit subjective - my friend seems to think I'm scared of him but he's not violent or anything like that.

He's refusing to leave your house, that is intimidation! Tell him, clearly, he has until X time to leave. If he refuses, that's when you call the police. Being in someone's house against their will and refusing to leave is pretty intimidating!

If he has lived in your house and done improvement work on it I'm afraid he does have some financial claim - a friend of mine had to pay some money to an ex even though it was her house and he had never paid towards the mortgage.

Unfortunately it sounds like you need to get yourself a lawyer.

if the house is in your name only then i'd change the locks when he goes out and put all his stuff outside.
if he kicks up a fuss then call the police

Send him out on pretext and change the locks - bag his stuff up and tell him it will be available at a certain time - if he plays up call the police and tell them to remove him

Depends on what he has spent and in what capacity - its very complicated and not straight forward - get advice now

he hasn't spent anything except for £34 one time for some bits (I saw the receipt) and he has had £7000, which the builders say is far too much money for what he has done.
That is where it has potential to get really messy - you are right - but I think more in terms of dragging things out rather than winning.

At the end of the day I just physically want him gone, even if his stuff has to sit and wait. I need to clear up all the mess and make it nice (ish), also want to start some more work. I am really worried sick about my daughter having to live in this mess.

It's all really complicated and it's getting late, I really appreciate your opinions and advice as I'm all on my own here (countryside). Going into all the details would be upsetting, and obviously awful if he made me go to court and try to explain that rather than doing lots of lovely work making a nice home he has made it really hard for anyone to sort out - and my daughter comes home from school and cries about it. We could be a lot happier just with him gone and me tidying up and making do and being silly - it could even be fun! While he was away I did lots of work upstairs and had to camp in my daughter's room and we had a right laugh, and the results are pretty impressive too! I really had just started to feel like "sod it, I can do this and it will be fun".

As all of you are parents you will understand that feeling of a ticking clock as they get older and grow and develop - every week is another week out of someone's childhood and I'd like my daughter to be able to come home from school with friends and not worry about what they think.

As long as he is hanging about I feel like I'm in limbo, and it all just seems impossible to sort out.

Oh and PS it has occurred to me to take photos before anything changes, just in case.

Get him out, change the locks.

If you paid him for the work done then he's got no claim in that regard that I can see and if he does go down the legal route then you have your builders to give the professional opinion that he is a total cowboy who has sabotaged your house.

Give him dates when he can collect his things from outside, have some mates round at the same time to make sure he doesn't try to force entry.

You say you're not scared of him, but is your DD? It's not sending a good message to her that there is a man forcing her mother to let him live in the house, and preventing you from making it into a home. You really need to be proactive with this situation otherwise it could get even messier.

He has just come upstairs and given me a cup of tea and said sorry, made quite a little speech about not meaning to make problems for me and said he will go tomorrow. He will still have a lot of stuff here but he even said something (spontaneously!) about getting the scrappy round to take the vehicles away! Wow, I have been so worried about that you can't believe. (We are talking BIG vehicles, that can't be towed for legal reasons so it could be a real nightmare, and another legal quagmire).

It's just such a shame I had to TELL him you know? Of course he wants to say he's not like one of "those people" but of course he IS, he has been hanging about for a week and would have dragged it on and on if I hadn't yelled at him. (I didn't start out yelling, but I did in the end when I got sick of repeating myself. Not great.) He really gave me a nasty scare saying I had no right to tell him to leave and he wouldn't go. I went round one of the neighbours houses after posting here and I was shaking all over.

I asked a lawyer in another site and they said change the locks while he's out - so it's 100% agreement then, and I did tell them about the building work etc.

From what I could garner of the law it seems like in my situation he has no right to stay EXCEPT if he applies to a court and they rule that he does, ie it looked to me as though if I could physically get him out and keep him out he wouldn't be able to threaten me with the police or prosecute me for anything. But I couldn't be sure of that. I didn't want to end up with the police telling me I have to let him back in or that they can't remove him either. Some advice seemed to say if he didn't go I had to evict him through the courts! That would give him 6 weeks AFTER the decision!

I am now going to enjoy feeling relieved.

The kiddie is away staying with friends so I partly waited till I could yell all I liked without upsetting her. She used to like him but doesn't any more. She will be much happier - although he did try really hard to be nicer after I told him how she felt, and he cried about it a lot (not crocodile tears either, he was really heartbroken. He has been here a long time).

I don't know how much is deliberate damage to the house, he did admit that he has been playing some silly games. At the moment I'm too weirded-out by it to have him here at all.

Thanks everyone, nice forum you have here!

The speech is a good start, but just be careful. He's put a lot of effort into stayng and this might just be him buying time while he thinks up his next move.

First step is to get him out of the house long enough to change the locks. Any claim he may have to living in the house will be eroded if he isn't actually currently in there.

Keep giving him deadlines - in writing and keep copies for yourself. (I.e. if you have not collected your property by x date then I will have no choice but to assume that you don't want it and take it to the tip). Don't be on your own when he does come to collect, and don't let him in. You will probably have to bag his things up for him, giving him a chance to pack them himself will give him more time to be in the house and string out his departure so he can plot his next move.

Good luck!

Whether he has any financial claim on you is separate from whether you can remove him from the house. You can change the locks, or call the police, or both (and I would, if he's not out by say 5pm today). If he believes that you owe him money or he has a part share in the house he can take you to court for that, but that's different from an occupation order.

I agree with lucky that this whole cup of tea, out tomorrow thing is a delaying tactic. Otherwise he'd have just left and not made the speech.

First step - set a deadline for him to be out, and tell him that you will call the police if he doesn't do it.
Second step - once he's out, set a deadline for the stuff to be out.

Yes, I agree with tortoise. You NEED to be firm and clear with him, I would be sick to death all all this bellyaching. When I was in my early twenties I had this situation with an ex boyfriend who had moved in with me while I was still living at home with my mum. He took ages to move out after we split, and when he was still delaying after he had signed on a new place, I told him I wanted him out by the weekend. He replied nastily that he would leave when he felt like it, and also demanded money back that he had lent me. I didn't know what to do, and went downstairs and had a cry. My mum went mental, she went up there and yelled at him and was really scary and just generally great shouted that he would be out when we said and demanded his keys at that minute! It was awesome.

You need to give him a day and time, love. Preferably in the next few days. If he is still there after that, call the police and they will help you.

Hi there

If you change the locks you are illegally evicting him but it is for him to sue you for that. Also, if it is a joint home (regardless of name of the deeds)he may change the locks and do the same to you which is when it gets messy. The law for unmarried couples is not simple. You need to start making things official and get it sorted out once and for all. Put the onus on him to show he has an interest. Pm me for advice if you want. I will need to know details of house purchase, intentions at the time, money spent then and throughout relationship etc etc.

Best regards

Sassa

You are not married. The house is in your name. He has no legal right to be there. Change the locks. It's up to him then whether or not he wants to sue you for access to the house, but he'd be on very dodgy legal grounds indeed, andit's unlikely he would go to all that trouble.

It's only if you're married, or there is joint ownership, that changing the locks is not legal.

(and joint ownership means both names on the house deeds, not the fact that he might have done a bit of spurious work around the house.)

Lets agree to disagree beanlet. A cohabitee has a legal right to remain in the house. It would not be difficult for him secure a right to return including by changing the locks and handing her a key.

sassa - are you seriously saying that an ex boyfriend has the right to live in his ex girlfriends home? The relationship is over, the house is in her name, I think you speak bollocks.

I think this post would be better answered in Legal/Money Matters section.

That said, OP has ahd legal advice that recommends lock changing which I would generally suggest listening to a qualified solicitor before some person on the internet asserting random view!

He was only coming back to pick up his stuff though, he had already moved out.
I personally would call the police and tell them the above and that he is refusing to leave.

hi everyone, so many more posts! You all have plenty of good advice, and I predicted that people would say "don't believe it, it's some sort of ruse!".

Well I heard him moving about downstairs in the middle of the night and thought it a bit odd but couldn't think what he was up to, and when I got up this morning he had taken all of the tools. We had everything you may need on a building site and he has taken the lot, even little bits that my daughter's dad's dad left me in his will over 10 years ago. It would cost thousands to replace and I'm just gutted that he has turned out to be such a dog. Clearly it was a ruse - he obviously doesn't care about being friends, or my wellbeing or my daughter's one bit. He has basically just nicked our new furniture, or perhaps a new roof for the leaky extension. It's going to be a nightmare having to buy it all again - and he intends to move to the nearby town and get work as a repair man or something, so I bet he's thinking "now she'll have to pay me to come round and do X".

He is the most self-deluded person I ever met, even last night he was trying to say how pleased he is that he has helped me get on my feet! It's totally exasperating and I really don't know where to begin with him, as pretty much his entire world is completely different from reality. I earn money doing some computer programming and he was telling me last thing last night about all the programming languages he has apparently mastered (er ... no?) and I realised that what I was hearing was a rehearsal of the next spiel he will be giving another girl somewhere else soon!

After this I'm pretty sure he has a sociopathic streak a mile wide and all the apparent nice bits are just your typical charming psychopath, I'm afraid. It has literally been scaring the crap out of me that someone can behave like he has. Perhaps I will not be so freaked out if I can get things under control and tidy up ....

So I really think you are right about the locks and stuff, but there is hardly anything left worth taking except my computers. I'll try to sort it out tomorrow but I have so much work to do! Oh dear!

I have thought about calling the police, I phoned his friend instead and left a message to bring the tools back. He probably won't but he'll have trouble explaining to his friend why that happened. I'm still considering it - if they were insured I'd have to to get the money - and one reason I haven't is because he might just go to greater lengths to get revenge.

I just wish some of his friends would come here and see for themselves - he would have a deal of trouble getting them to believe how he has helped soooo much and been so hard done by.

Call the police, how dare he take your tools!

This is theft, which is a crime. Seriously, report it.

Can you prove it is yours?

Call the police. Seriously.
Otherwise, can you recoup the stuff selling his stuff?

Phone the police. Report the theft. Get a crime number so you can claim on insurance if necessary.

I don't fully agree with sassa but nor do I fully agree with Quintessentialshadow, either.
I tend to think if a homeowner has a cohabiting partner and the relationship has broken down, the cohabitee who is being asked to leave has no legal right to stay in the property, HOWEVER, I believe that reasonable time (whatever that is) must be given to the cohabitee to leave.
I don't think that the homeowning partner can JUST chuck the ex-partner out, but, at the same time, the ex-partner has no claim either.

If I am wrong, please correct me.