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Help and advice desperately needed about messy housing situation between family!
Writing on behalf of my partner. Apologies it’s long but I’ve kept it as brief as I can for it to still make sense.
Without going into too much detail where I can avoid it, he owns a house with his sister, and the gist of this post is that he wants out but it’s become very complicated.
His mum lost her business and went bankrupt around about 15 years ago, and she was in rented accommodation at the time with him and his siblings at home, following his parents’ divorce. The house was overcrowded.
My partner and his mum had some savings they used to put to a deposit for a house between them around 12 years ago. As mum couldn’t get credit, my partner agreed to take on the mortgage to secure them a stable and bigger house. However, when the mortgage application went in, despite him having regular overtime that made up the affordability, the lender would only lend on his contracted hours at work, so he was short on borrowing what was needed. His younger sister agreed to go on the mortgage with him to boost affordability.
He remembers sitting with the solicitor and agreeing what would happen if they fell out or one of them wanted to sell etc, but he’s lost the paperwork from the purchase and the solicitors are saying they don’t keep info like this after six years, so he can’t access it now. He doesn’t know if his sister still has this or not.
My partner has always paid the mortgage - when siblings were still at home they split the main other bills with mum between them as their contribution - his mum now pays these herself. Mum had paid for a new bathroom and some basic decoration since living in the current house.
Over the years my partner’s siblings have moved out, leaving him at home with mum. He has wanted to move out for years but sister talked him into staying as she didn’t want to ‘be the one to leave mum on her own’, so he hasn’t known how to manage to move out due to being on the mortgage for this house. She moved out to live with her husband after having he first child.
As things go, he and I have met and have now been together for three years, and we want to move in together. I’m 30f and he’s 34m. I am in the middle of selling my current house and buying a new one a bit better located for us both as we’re from different towns.
I am having to buy on my own though, again due to his affordability being wrapped up in the house he owns with his sister, nor can he put any of his savings in to increase the deposit as we aren’t married etc. If we’d done a JBSP mortgage he’d have been whacked with stamp duty even though the house we’re buying is only 190k as it’d have been his second house.
My partner works for a high street bank and therefore has a preferential interest rate on his mortgage for the house with his sister, that we’d have loved to access for our purchase. My mortgage offer is 4.94% and the rate he’s got through work is 3.6%, so we’re losing out on this as again this is tied up there.
He’s been telling his mum and sister that he wants to find a plan for him to be financially free of the house he owns with the sister for about 18m now. This all stemmed from an argument his mum started where she said she wanted them to go their separate ways, and he said he wanted to move out but couldn’t, as he didn’t know what she’d do if he did. His mum kept quite flippantly saying for him to ‘just sell the house’ but wouldn’t look at making any plans basically saying she’d just let him make her homeless.
Time has passed and mum has done nothing other than pay lip service about finding somewhere to move to, even when my partner has said he’d top any rent she needed up with proceeds from the sale etc, or if his sister agreed, buy her something outright with the equity in the house if she found something smaller and more affordable. He said he’d keep it in his name if absolutely necessary in case she ever needs care etc so they’d not lose the house for care costs and let her live in it rent free and suck up any future SDLT as long as he wasn’t financially associated with sister or on a mortgage.
He helped her sign up for benefits after she had her knee replacement and she didn’t engage with them to sort anything out - she can only work part time in the shop she’s worked at for years due to her age and health, she’s now 64. After losing her business she’s only ever worked part time, the family put this down to her losing confidence when her own shop went bust.
Now we’re at a point where he’s going to be moving in with me and will need to contribute to the bills etc at the house once we move. He’s gutted he’s not been able to come on the mortgage with me, but we did it just in my name both for financial reasons, and because we felt it quite risky to become financial associates with each other by going on a mortgage together - when his sister having joint accounts with her husband has already linked them and my partner financially, which he is not happy about as sister’s husband is self employed and she only works two days a week because of the children - she’s got two daughters under 5. He feels really vulnerable about this in case anything ever happens and it stops him getting credit etc.
He’s spoken to mum recently about the situation and she agreed to start viewing and looking what was around. My partner’s not just upset about his own situation, but is really worried that his mum is trying to pick more hours up to pay the mortgage once he’s moved out, but with her knees she’s been really struggling even doing the core hours she’s contracted to stood in the shop, to the point she’s hobbling when she comes home. It’s quite sad to see to be honest.
He sat his mum and sister down a few months ago to talk about the situation, Sister previously said she’d be happy for ‘her half’ to go towards whatever mum wants to do if she moves from the current house (4 bed semi) and made it clear she expects my partner to do the same with ‘his half’, saying any proceeds from any sale should be their mum’s money. My partner is generally happy to give mum money to do what she wants to if it means he will get his share back at some point in the future.
However, despite them promising to work with him on a solution they’ve done absolutely nothing.
As my purchase of the new house has progressed, he’s getting more and more angsty about it all so tried again a few weeks ago to raise the following points with his mum and sister:
- he was clear he will not be able to pay the mortgage once he moves out. His mum said she will pay it but he’s asked what about post-retirement as she won’t be able to afford the mortgage in 18m herself, and barely can now. She just keeps saying she will work extra hours and past retirement, but she’s clearly already not managing the hours she has so he’s told her he doesn’t think that’s a sustainable plan, and he doesn’t think it’s right she shouldn’t be able to retire and enjoy this part of her life as she planned to.
- His sister then said she will pay the mortgage if mum can’t. He asked her how she’s going to do that working two days a week on minimum wage with two children. She said she will also pick up extra hours at work, but she’s recently spoken of wanting another baby, so he again said this doesn’t seem a viable plan to him, and he didn’t think it was fair a mum of two young kids working to pay for a house she’s not living in.
- He asked what they are going to do if he moves jobs and loses his preferential interest rate on the mortgage and the price shoots up - they again said ‘we will cross that bridge when we come to it’. He pointed out this is how they’ve got into this situation as they’ve just blindly gone along, never planning for anything, and it’s making him anxious - so he wants a better plan in place that doesn’t involve him being the one keeping the mortgage in place. He also wants to open joint accounts with me and ensure he can put some of his savings into our new house and come on the mortgage with me in two years time when our fixed rate on the new mortgage will end. His sister then told him to stop thinking of worst case scenarios and left.
After this, his mum promised him she would start looking on Rightmove. He showed her two very suitable properties, one on the same road they are on now (a 1 bed house that has straight stairs in case she ever needed a stair lift as the stairs in their current house are not suitable for one), and a bungalow a 4 min drive away that he could have bought outright or with a very small mortgage he could have cleared with mum within 5 years. She said no to viewing both but gave no reasons why.
Since then everything has got a bit frosty at the house and they are all avoiding each other. He’s saying now he wants to just move out and then try and force a sale and just split proceeds three ways or whatever between the three of them. Or ask his sister to buy him out at a reduced rate so she and mum can sort the current house out on their own. He thinks it’s a silly idea mum being left rattling around a huge house on her own though into her later years of life as he thinks she’s going to struggle with using the stairs as she gets older and she isn’t able to look after the house without a lot of help already. He does the bulk of cleaning/hoovering etc around the house currently for them.
He’s incredibly upset saying he’s told them how this is impacting him and how worried he feels, that it’s stopping him living the life he wants to with me as an independent adult etc. I’ve never seen this man cry but he was so close the other week saying how he misses his dad who died years ago and how he wouldn’t be in this situation if his dad were here, even though mum and sister hated his dad, and how he just feels their response or lack thereof is indication that they just don’t care how this is impacting him. He’s now thinking about seeking to get a court order in 18m if necessary to force a sale if sister won’t agree to one before then so he can definitely come on the mortgage then. However he’s worried if his mum retires whilst still there he could be forced to keep on the mortgage there as she could become an adult dependent etc. I don’t know how likely that is.
He’s also angry because part of us moving in is that we want to start a family, and he’s worried if I go on maternity leave or we can’t work childcare out and I have to drop some hours at work to accommodate this if we have a baby, then we’re going to struggle remortgaging with a better deal if he can’t come on the mortgage and my pay has dropped. He also wants to end the financial association between him, his sister, and brother in law before we try for a baby to minimise the risk of them ever being cause for him to not be able to get credit if/when we need it, and this is all stressing us both out no end really.
Has anyone got any helpful advice about this and what we can look to do? because I am at a complete loss what to suggest or do at this stage, I’m worried it’s going to end up with none of them speaking, which would be sad as there’s only them in the family really and my partner adores his nieces and would be heartbroken not to see them, but he feels this is something his sister would stop him seeing them over. I’m just so upset it has come to this as the whole idea of him trying to help mum move on somewhere more affordable was to get everyone happy and settled, help mum retire as planned whilst he gains financial independence, and protect the family relationships for the future. They just don’t seem to want to do that.
Were thinking of going to a solicitor for advice 100% (welcome any recommendations, we are based in NW England), but in the meantime I wondered if anyone could mention anything pertinent they think might help - I’d be ever so grateful! Thank you!
Writing on behalf of my partner. Apologies it’s long but I’ve kept it as brief as I can for it to still make sense.
Without going into too much detail where I can avoid it, he owns a house with his sister, and the gist of this post is that he wants out but it’s become very complicated.
His mum lost her business and went bankrupt around about 15 years ago, and she was in rented accommodation at the time with him and his siblings at home, following his parents’ divorce. The house was overcrowded.
My partner and his mum had some savings they used to put to a deposit for a house between them around 12 years ago. As mum couldn’t get credit, my partner agreed to take on the mortgage to secure them a stable and bigger house. However, when the mortgage application went in, despite him having regular overtime that made up the affordability, the lender would only lend on his contracted hours at work, so he was short on borrowing what was needed. His younger sister agreed to go on the mortgage with him to boost affordability.
He remembers sitting with the solicitor and agreeing what would happen if they fell out or one of them wanted to sell etc, but he’s lost the paperwork from the purchase and the solicitors are saying they don’t keep info like this after six years, so he can’t access it now. He doesn’t know if his sister still has this or not.
My partner has always paid the mortgage - when siblings were still at home they split the main other bills with mum between them as their contribution - his mum now pays these herself. Mum had paid for a new bathroom and some basic decoration since living in the current house.
Over the years my partner’s siblings have moved out, leaving him at home with mum. He has wanted to move out for years but sister talked him into staying as she didn’t want to ‘be the one to leave mum on her own’, so he hasn’t known how to manage to move out due to being on the mortgage for this house. She moved out to live with her husband after having he first child.
As things go, he and I have met and have now been together for three years, and we want to move in together. I’m 30f and he’s 34m. I am in the middle of selling my current house and buying a new one a bit better located for us both as we’re from different towns.
I am having to buy on my own though, again due to his affordability being wrapped up in the house he owns with his sister, nor can he put any of his savings in to increase the deposit as we aren’t married etc. If we’d done a JBSP mortgage he’d have been whacked with stamp duty even though the house we’re buying is only 190k as it’d have been his second house.
My partner works for a high street bank and therefore has a preferential interest rate on his mortgage for the house with his sister, that we’d have loved to access for our purchase. My mortgage offer is 4.94% and the rate he’s got through work is 3.6%, so we’re losing out on this as again this is tied up there.
He’s been telling his mum and sister that he wants to find a plan for him to be financially free of the house he owns with the sister for about 18m now. This all stemmed from an argument his mum started where she said she wanted them to go their separate ways, and he said he wanted to move out but couldn’t, as he didn’t know what she’d do if he did. His mum kept quite flippantly saying for him to ‘just sell the house’ but wouldn’t look at making any plans basically saying she’d just let him make her homeless.
Time has passed and mum has done nothing other than pay lip service about finding somewhere to move to, even when my partner has said he’d top any rent she needed up with proceeds from the sale etc, or if his sister agreed, buy her something outright with the equity in the house if she found something smaller and more affordable. He said he’d keep it in his name if absolutely necessary in case she ever needs care etc so they’d not lose the house for care costs and let her live in it rent free and suck up any future SDLT as long as he wasn’t financially associated with sister or on a mortgage.
He helped her sign up for benefits after she had her knee replacement and she didn’t engage with them to sort anything out - she can only work part time in the shop she’s worked at for years due to her age and health, she’s now 64. After losing her business she’s only ever worked part time, the family put this down to her losing confidence when her own shop went bust.
Now we’re at a point where he’s going to be moving in with me and will need to contribute to the bills etc at the house once we move. He’s gutted he’s not been able to come on the mortgage with me, but we did it just in my name both for financial reasons, and because we felt it quite risky to become financial associates with each other by going on a mortgage together - when his sister having joint accounts with her husband has already linked them and my partner financially, which he is not happy about as sister’s husband is self employed and she only works two days a week because of the children - she’s got two daughters under 5. He feels really vulnerable about this in case anything ever happens and it stops him getting credit etc.
He’s spoken to mum recently about the situation and she agreed to start viewing and looking what was around. My partner’s not just upset about his own situation, but is really worried that his mum is trying to pick more hours up to pay the mortgage once he’s moved out, but with her knees she’s been really struggling even doing the core hours she’s contracted to stood in the shop, to the point she’s hobbling when she comes home. It’s quite sad to see to be honest.
He sat his mum and sister down a few months ago to talk about the situation, Sister previously said she’d be happy for ‘her half’ to go towards whatever mum wants to do if she moves from the current house (4 bed semi) and made it clear she expects my partner to do the same with ‘his half’, saying any proceeds from any sale should be their mum’s money. My partner is generally happy to give mum money to do what she wants to if it means he will get his share back at some point in the future.
However, despite them promising to work with him on a solution they’ve done absolutely nothing.
As my purchase of the new house has progressed, he’s getting more and more angsty about it all so tried again a few weeks ago to raise the following points with his mum and sister:
- he was clear he will not be able to pay the mortgage once he moves out. His mum said she will pay it but he’s asked what about post-retirement as she won’t be able to afford the mortgage in 18m herself, and barely can now. She just keeps saying she will work extra hours and past retirement, but she’s clearly already not managing the hours she has so he’s told her he doesn’t think that’s a sustainable plan, and he doesn’t think it’s right she shouldn’t be able to retire and enjoy this part of her life as she planned to.
- His sister then said she will pay the mortgage if mum can’t. He asked her how she’s going to do that working two days a week on minimum wage with two children. She said she will also pick up extra hours at work, but she’s recently spoken of wanting another baby, so he again said this doesn’t seem a viable plan to him, and he didn’t think it was fair a mum of two young kids working to pay for a house she’s not living in.
- He asked what they are going to do if he moves jobs and loses his preferential interest rate on the mortgage and the price shoots up - they again said ‘we will cross that bridge when we come to it’. He pointed out this is how they’ve got into this situation as they’ve just blindly gone along, never planning for anything, and it’s making him anxious - so he wants a better plan in place that doesn’t involve him being the one keeping the mortgage in place. He also wants to open joint accounts with me and ensure he can put some of his savings into our new house and come on the mortgage with me in two years time when our fixed rate on the new mortgage will end. His sister then told him to stop thinking of worst case scenarios and left.
After this, his mum promised him she would start looking on Rightmove. He showed her two very suitable properties, one on the same road they are on now (a 1 bed house that has straight stairs in case she ever needed a stair lift as the stairs in their current house are not suitable for one), and a bungalow a 4 min drive away that he could have bought outright or with a very small mortgage he could have cleared with mum within 5 years. She said no to viewing both but gave no reasons why.
Since then everything has got a bit frosty at the house and they are all avoiding each other. He’s saying now he wants to just move out and then try and force a sale and just split proceeds three ways or whatever between the three of them. Or ask his sister to buy him out at a reduced rate so she and mum can sort the current house out on their own. He thinks it’s a silly idea mum being left rattling around a huge house on her own though into her later years of life as he thinks she’s going to struggle with using the stairs as she gets older and she isn’t able to look after the house without a lot of help already. He does the bulk of cleaning/hoovering etc around the house currently for them.
He’s incredibly upset saying he’s told them how this is impacting him and how worried he feels, that it’s stopping him living the life he wants to with me as an independent adult etc. I’ve never seen this man cry but he was so close the other week saying how he misses his dad who died years ago and how he wouldn’t be in this situation if his dad were here, even though mum and sister hated his dad, and how he just feels their response or lack thereof is indication that they just don’t care how this is impacting him. He’s now thinking about seeking to get a court order in 18m if necessary to force a sale if sister won’t agree to one before then so he can definitely come on the mortgage then. However he’s worried if his mum retires whilst still there he could be forced to keep on the mortgage there as she could become an adult dependent etc. I don’t know how likely that is.
He’s also angry because part of us moving in is that we want to start a family, and he’s worried if I go on maternity leave or we can’t work childcare out and I have to drop some hours at work to accommodate this if we have a baby, then we’re going to struggle remortgaging with a better deal if he can’t come on the mortgage and my pay has dropped. He also wants to end the financial association between him, his sister, and brother in law before we try for a baby to minimise the risk of them ever being cause for him to not be able to get credit if/when we need it, and this is all stressing us both out no end really.
Has anyone got any helpful advice about this and what we can look to do? because I am at a complete loss what to suggest or do at this stage, I’m worried it’s going to end up with none of them speaking, which would be sad as there’s only them in the family really and my partner adores his nieces and would be heartbroken not to see them, but he feels this is something his sister would stop him seeing them over. I’m just so upset it has come to this as the whole idea of him trying to help mum move on somewhere more affordable was to get everyone happy and settled, help mum retire as planned whilst he gains financial independence, and protect the family relationships for the future. They just don’t seem to want to do that.
Were thinking of going to a solicitor for advice 100% (welcome any recommendations, we are based in NW England), but in the meantime I wondered if anyone could mention anything pertinent they think might help - I’d be ever so grateful! Thank you!
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