consent order troubles

[jaysonw]

Hi, I was divorced in 2013 and reached a financial settlement with my ex - this was a mega lengthy affair and ended in a final hearing at court. I had severe credit problems after having cancer in 2009 and paying 20+k for an operation to save my life after the NHS messed up. During the divorce, my wife had a solicitor on a no win no fee basis I had to pay my bills, which was funded by a family member.

The solicitor on my side finalised the consent order and got me to sign it, on the day in court I was never really sat down and explained what it all meant. In the order, it said I had to pay off all the joint debt, pay her court costs and give her 25k all of which I've done.

There was a clause that said I had to remove her name from the mortgage, once I was out the court I was aware of this too in the following days I called northern rock and asked to remove her name from the mortgage of which they refused. They said I could not qualify for a change as my credit was poor. They said they were not able to help.

My ex-wife live in a rented house which I helped her get, she works and is on benefits to pay the rent etc, I have a joint custody order with the children.

I recently 1 day before Christmas received out of the blue from her solicitor saying they want to enforce the order for them to take control of the sale of the house and the proceeds to be split between her and myself.

This was a massive shock and I've had sleepless nights since, I rang the mortgage company and still they say I can't go from a joint mortgage to a single person mortgage, this seems like a complete stitch up how could I of ever fulfil this order? The mortgage company say I could try and add my girlfriend but neither of us has a great credit rating.

I really in need of urgent help, no idea what to do and feel so so stressed.

regards

Jayson

[2222]

5 years have gone by, and your ex-wife is still responsible for your mortgage. You can see that that's a problem for her. If the only way you can resolve this is to sell the house, I cannot see any way around doing just that. The courts don't like revisiting consent orders, so I don't rate your chances of getting the order overturned, I'm afraid. Whether a court would order the house sold in order to comply with the original order, I cannot say, but it seems quite possible unless you have some other solution available.

Of course, none of that is going to happen rapidly, so you can relax a bit, but you are absolutely right not to just leave it.

The original court order should have dealt with division of the joint assets. You say the order was for you to pay your ex- £25k, which you did. Do the solicitors explain why they think their client might be entitled to a split of the sale proceeds of the house as well? In the same way as the original order is binding on you, it's also binding on your ex- and very hard for her to overturn. Did the order specify she was to get anything from the eventual sale of the house?