joint debt and mortgage issue

[oxonguy]

My wife and I separated 6 months ago. She remains in our rented family home with our son. We own a holiday property in France which has a mortgage and is also in negative equity.

I currently pay a sum of money into a bank acount in order to cover the costs of the mortgage payment on the holiday property, a monthly sum to her which amounts to more than 15% of my net income to provide for my son, and an amount to cover our joint personal debt.

I would like to enquire what the law says about rights to the property and its payments. I would like my wife to sign her half of the house over to me (which means I take on the negative equity debt)so that she is free and clear of the responsibility. She states she wants to keep the property. But she is not in a position financially to pay her half of the monthly payment.
I have offered my ex that I would take on £20k of joint personal debt and continue to pay her more than my 15% of net income obligation in exchange for the negative equity house. Is there any legal reason why she would be refusing this (very generous) offer?

If she continues to refuse this offer(for whatever reason), can I legally insist that she immediately starts to pay for half of all of our joint personal debt AND mortgage payments?

[WendyB]

Re: joint debt and mortgage issue

I am not an expert, but I believe that it wouldn't be as simple as your wife just signing over her half of the property to you, negative equity or not. If there is a mortgage on the property, then in order for you to take on the whole of that mortgage you would have to be in a position (in the bank/building society's opinion) to be able to afford the mortgage on your own, i.e qualify for the amount of the mortgage on your sole income, before they would allow the ownership to be transferred and the mortgage to be single as opposed to joint.