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House after a split
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
In December 2006 my partner and his ex moved in together, on the day they moved in he found out she had been sleeping with someone else and the relationship ended. He then took a job abroad in Haiti which involves being out there for 3 months then back in England for holidays for 2-3 weeks, leaving his ex the money to pay his half of the mortgage in his absence.
In April he completely took over the mortgage payments at the request of his ex, and she said her solicitor would be in touch. In May after he returned to Haiti he got a letter to his home address (his mail all gets sent to his mums) saying (because of the confusion about who was making the last payment) the mortgage had gone into arrears. His mum phoned them and arranged it so that the missed payment would be added onto the following 3 months payment.
In August he was home again and tried to request the documents to begin the process of applying to be the sole name on the mortgage. His ex wanted her initial investment of 8k back (which he can afford to pay her) and then would sign the house over to him. However because the mortgage had gone into arrears they told him he couldn't get the documents until after the last payment had been made (end of August after he had returned to Haiti).
He finally managed to get hold of the documents on his last trip home in December. Signed them, sent them away, and was just waiting for the mortgage company to approve him as the sole name on the mortgage. They did, and he had a brief trip home last weekend in which he had to send off some more documents at their request.
Now the mortgage company are saying all is fine and has gone through, but they want some copies of ID from him as well as proof of address before they can proceed any further. His ex's solicitor has given a deadline of 14th March for this all to be finished, otherwise his ex will withdraw her offer of just wanting the 8k back and will demand to get the house valued and be given half of any value by which the house has increased (for which according to her solicitor, my partner will be liable for the fees).
He isn't going to be back into the country until April, so clearly can't have this done by 14th March. He flew back specifically from Haiti last week to sign these documents, but the cost of coming back and loss of earnings works out about about £1500-2000 which he just can't afford to do again for the sake of signing something.
Haiti has no postal service, electricity supply is erratic and the phonelines are awful, so there is no way he can sort it out from over there.
Basically I just wondered if anyone knows there is anything he can do to sort the situation out. He does have a solicitor but she seems to be pretty passive and not offering much advice. He keeps saying that if he could have some legal document drawn up guaranteeing that his ex would sign over the equity and the house to him, then he would transfer the 8k to her immediately, is something like this possible?
Also, if it does come to his ex demanding to get 3 valuations on the house, will he be responsible for this and for the fees it incurs, or would this be a joint responsibility?
The situation is just really frustrating. I can see from her point of view she wants her money, but at the same time she could have made a few phonecalls so that when April came, the documents were all waiting at the house, he could have signed them and sent them off and this could have been over and done with by last summer. Instead when he returned in April she'd taken all the documents about the house, changed her phone number and he didn't know where she was living, so all he could do was email her and wait for her reply, which took three weeks. Now he is really worried that he is going to end up having to sell the house and his solicitor doesn't seem to be doing much.
Sorry this was really long, anyone have any advice?
In April he completely took over the mortgage payments at the request of his ex, and she said her solicitor would be in touch. In May after he returned to Haiti he got a letter to his home address (his mail all gets sent to his mums) saying (because of the confusion about who was making the last payment) the mortgage had gone into arrears. His mum phoned them and arranged it so that the missed payment would be added onto the following 3 months payment.
In August he was home again and tried to request the documents to begin the process of applying to be the sole name on the mortgage. His ex wanted her initial investment of 8k back (which he can afford to pay her) and then would sign the house over to him. However because the mortgage had gone into arrears they told him he couldn't get the documents until after the last payment had been made (end of August after he had returned to Haiti).
He finally managed to get hold of the documents on his last trip home in December. Signed them, sent them away, and was just waiting for the mortgage company to approve him as the sole name on the mortgage. They did, and he had a brief trip home last weekend in which he had to send off some more documents at their request.
Now the mortgage company are saying all is fine and has gone through, but they want some copies of ID from him as well as proof of address before they can proceed any further. His ex's solicitor has given a deadline of 14th March for this all to be finished, otherwise his ex will withdraw her offer of just wanting the 8k back and will demand to get the house valued and be given half of any value by which the house has increased (for which according to her solicitor, my partner will be liable for the fees).
He isn't going to be back into the country until April, so clearly can't have this done by 14th March. He flew back specifically from Haiti last week to sign these documents, but the cost of coming back and loss of earnings works out about about £1500-2000 which he just can't afford to do again for the sake of signing something.
Haiti has no postal service, electricity supply is erratic and the phonelines are awful, so there is no way he can sort it out from over there.
Basically I just wondered if anyone knows there is anything he can do to sort the situation out. He does have a solicitor but she seems to be pretty passive and not offering much advice. He keeps saying that if he could have some legal document drawn up guaranteeing that his ex would sign over the equity and the house to him, then he would transfer the 8k to her immediately, is something like this possible?
Also, if it does come to his ex demanding to get 3 valuations on the house, will he be responsible for this and for the fees it incurs, or would this be a joint responsibility?
The situation is just really frustrating. I can see from her point of view she wants her money, but at the same time she could have made a few phonecalls so that when April came, the documents were all waiting at the house, he could have signed them and sent them off and this could have been over and done with by last summer. Instead when he returned in April she'd taken all the documents about the house, changed her phone number and he didn't know where she was living, so all he could do was email her and wait for her reply, which took three weeks. Now he is really worried that he is going to end up having to sell the house and his solicitor doesn't seem to be doing much.
Sorry this was really long, anyone have any advice?
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Comments
Yeah I think it is a silly situation and am reluctant to get involved or say anything about it!
Thanks, that might be helpful but I guess they will want written valuations so not sure what the status will be on that.
An estate agent would generally leave you the sale figure on a contract, so that you can easily sign it if you want to take it further with them. That would suffice, I would expect.
If another party is expecting more than that, then they should cover (at least) half the cost.