Advice regarding house sale - couple with kids have parted

[oldbanger]

My little sister has 3 kids, and was with the dad for over a decade. No marriage. He seemed like a good solid bloke, hard worker, reasonable job etc.

She'd inherited a house, but when no3 turned up they sold up and bought together, joint tenancy, joint mortgage.

Anyway, about a year ago, he went off with someone else (following a brief period where he'd started knocking her about). The little sister is currently at university and on child tax credit, not able to work (the youngest is chronically ill and isn't at school age yet). The dad doesn't contribute anything except the interest on the mortgage (benefits won't pay for housing as she's a joint owner). With any luck once she's qualified and the little one is at school she'll manage to get a job, but it's not going to be fantastically well paid, particularly once childcare is taken into account.

The dad now wants his half of the house (as it's joint tenancy he is legally entitled to half). My sister is not in a position to buy him out and with no earnings is not going to qualify for a mortgage on anywhere else either. However, if they do sell and split 50:50 she'd have some equity - not enough to get a place of her own though, though possibly enough for a 1 bed shared ownership flat. If he does manage to force her to sell (e.g. by stopping mortgage payments), does this mean her benefits will also be withdrawn, even if she re-invests the money in property?

[randlemarcus]

I suspect it depends how fast she acts. If she buys a new place with the money from the sale, before it leaves the solicitors client account, does that count against your savings allowance?

[Welshbeef]

Question she inherited a house (Im taking that as 100% debt free).

Given that + the equity gain why can she not either buy a similar house to the one she inherited or bank the cash and rent until she has a job?

IIRC you need less than £8k savings to be able to claim any benefits though.

[oldbanger]

Welshbeef said:

Question she inherited a house (Im taking that as 100% debt free).

Given that + the equity gain why can she not either buy a similar house to the one she inherited or bank the cash and rent until she has a job?

I'm unclear as to whether the guy got his name on the old place as well. Originally it was in my sister and our dad's names. When he took himself off the deed her ex may have been put on that as well. There was a tiny mortgage on it.

However the new house was bought under a joint tenancy agreement, so ownership is 50;50, and the ex is sending out solicitors letters to the effect that he is owed half the equity in the current house asap.

[oldbanger]

randlemarcus said:

I suspect it depends how fast she acts. If she buys a new place with the money from the sale, before it leaves the solicitors client account, does that count against your savings allowance?

This is what I'm wondering, because otherwise she's going to end up having to live off that cash until it runs out as all benefits will stop and she won't be entitled to help with finding housing either.

Don't get me wrong, she's a lot better off than many, but it just seems plain wrong that her ex can walk away in profit from all this and with no financial obligation to his kids, whilst any income she's currently getting is cut off. She has always worked hard, but she went back to uni when her youngest was 2, and even before that was only working part time. She only started claiming benefits when he dumped her.

Anyhow, if I can get any indication of how the situation is going to be if she has this kind of cash in the bank or invested in a small BTL property, in terms of her benefits, at least I can start getting her used to the idea so it's not a shock. The whole situation has been completely stty, to say the least. The bloke has become a bit of a psycho to be honest (abusing her in the street etc) so on that front she's well rid, though of course he still has access to his kids when he wants it (frequently this entails him collecting his kids late, dropping them off at his mum's then going out on the razz with his mates).

Edited by oldbanger on Friday 27th August 17:01

[Welshbeef]

oldbanger said:

Welshbeef said:

Question she inherited a house (Im taking that as 100% debt free).

Given that + the equity gain why can she not either buy a similar house to the one she inherited or bank the cash and rent until she has a job?

I'm unclear as to whether the guy got his name on the old place as well. Originally it was in my sister and our dad's names. When he took himself off the deed her ex may have been put on that as well. There was a tiny mortgage on it.

However the new house was bought under a joint tenancy agreement, so ownership is 50;50, and the ex is sending out solicitors letters to the effect that he is owed half the equity in the current house asap.

hang on a minute I get it now she sold her old place and put the cash into a bigger house BUT by getting tennants in common @50:50 instead of say 70:30 to account for her deposit then he is gaining an element of her deposit.

Get the lawyers in. Have the bank statments showing where the cash came fro
or put a charge on the property for that element.

It's going to be nasty and not cheap to whoever loses but if she doesn't she's lost a whole house...

[Gareth79]

I was also thinking that she needs to get a second opinion on whether her ex is entitled to half the house if she put in most of the money to buy it. Also I was under the impression that a mother is usually entitled to more to take account of her taking care of the children (separate from any child support payments).

[Welshbeef]

Gareth79 said:

I was also thinking that she needs to get a second opinion on whether her ex is entitled to half the house if she put in most of the money to buy it. Also I was under the impression that a mother is usually entitled to more to take account of her taking care of the children (separate from any child support payments).

kids wise all that is due is maintence.

House wise he owns it 50:50 tennants in common. She should have split it into three lots say 40:30:30 ie her big deposit from the inheritance then the outstanding is 50:50 which is fine.

Not sure why he is paying interest only as unless the mortgage is interest only she is propping up the repayment element so he is winning again. Neither can dictate to switch to int only. In fact the bank may not even permit that I guess he is paying at that level as repayment plus his new place cleans him out

however woman beater.... No concern for any financial hardships he may face -plus I hope you had the chance too introduce his head to a wall a few times or take pics of what he did round to his mum And dad.. That would really cause more pain than any kicking you could give him he'd hurt real bad which is perfect

[oldbanger]

Welshbeef said:

however woman beater.... No concern for any financial hardships he may face -plus I hope you had the chance too introduce his head to a wall a few times or take pics of what he did round to his mum And dad.. That would really cause more pain than any kicking you could give him he'd hurt real bad which is perfect

His mum knows what he's like (I hope she's not pretending otherwise).

As to the rest, I'm a lardy middle aged lady and he's a cage fighter. I'm not going there, thanks.

[Welshbeef]

oldbanger said:

Welshbeef said:

however woman beater.... No concern for any financial hardships he may face -plus I hope you had the chance too introduce his head to a wall a few times or take pics of what he did round to his mum And dad.. That would really cause more pain than any kicking you could give him he'd hurt real bad which is perfect

His mum knows what he's like (I hope she's not pretending otherwise).

As to the rest, I'm a lardy middle aged lady and he's a cage fighter. I'm not going there, thanks.

fair enough.

Car topic I see you ran a montego previously what were your thoughts?

[ClassicMercs]

Gareth79 said:

I was also thinking that she needs to get a second opinion on whether her ex is entitled to half the house if she put in most of the money to buy it. Also I was under the impression that a mother is usually entitled to more to take account of her taking care of the children (separate from any child support payments).

+1
Don't take anything for granted.
I know where a wife deliberately gave up work - and got 95% of the house due to her lack of potential earning capacity (was older than you sis.) even though his capacity was very little more than hers.
Another guy had his wife want £125k (20 yrs ago) which his solicitor said was a bit rich. He wished he had settled as the court gave her £250k.
She should easily be able to keep a good proportion of the house with some good advice. Only winner I'm afraid will be the legal system.

[oldbanger]

Welshbeef said:

Car topic I see you ran a montego previously what were your thoughts?

It was an emergency car when the last banger died. My only automatic - a very comfortable, lazy drive, as long as you like driving something that handles like a bungalow. The automatic choke used to stick if the ambient temperature went below about 10 degrees, though, which made starting the damn thing quite fiddly.

Thanks for all the replies. She's tried using a solicitor our dad uses, but to be quite frank the guy's a complete numpty. It's my impression though that protection for the child carer when splitting assets only applies in divorces, not if the couple was never married.

Oh, and the reason he want the money is apparently ... the new much richer GF (not the woman he originally run off with, I think this is no 3 or 4 now) is currently having to pay more than her share to support him (they're renting together), so he needs his share of the equity to splash the cash.

Edited by oldbanger on Saturday 28th August 09:32