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hi all
looking for advice on a matter if possible, I'll give a brief overview of what has been an absolute nightmare.
a few years ago my father in law past away without leaving a will, he had a girlfriend living with him at the time.
he had made it very clear to anyone that would listen that his home was to go to his kids as most of us would want and the girlfriend always made a point of agreeing.
there were debts and a mortgage attached to the property so after a while a conversation was had between my wife and the girlfriend whereby it was said that she was welcome to stay in the house but would have to pay rent to cover the mortgage etc, something she had never done, although she has a good job as a ward sister she'd never contributed anything other than what you would expect to pay to live, food etc.
unfortunatley that wasn't good enough so the next offer was to buy the place at a really knocked down price to clear the debt, again not good enough so I'm sure by now you know where this is going, yep she made a beneficial interest claim on the house.
So after two years going back and forth bending over backwards to help this woman we end up with a three day trial to decide what happens.
as expected she lost her claim, turns out that buying cushions and pots and pans doesn't give you a beneficial interest in a property.
by this point we've spent £70000 on legal fees and mortgage payments because she was still in the house.
she was ordered by the judge to pay our fees but surprise surprise she declared herself bankrupt giving us no chance of getting our money back, money we'd had to remortgage our house to pay
she was discharged from bankruptcy in march this year which is unbelievable.
anyway to get to my point, when we finally got her out of the house we found that she had trashed the place and stolen stuff the house needed, along with leaving 4 skips worth of rubbish to get rid of, in total to put these things right it cost us another £4000
so my question is if anyone can help is can I take this woman to the small claims court to recover the £4000? It's nothing compared to what we have lost but still a lot of money.
she does still work so I think it's only right she pays but don't know the legal side regarding her bankruptcy
many thanks in in advance for any advice
reg
looking for advice on a matter if possible, I'll give a brief overview of what has been an absolute nightmare.
a few years ago my father in law past away without leaving a will, he had a girlfriend living with him at the time.
he had made it very clear to anyone that would listen that his home was to go to his kids as most of us would want and the girlfriend always made a point of agreeing.
there were debts and a mortgage attached to the property so after a while a conversation was had between my wife and the girlfriend whereby it was said that she was welcome to stay in the house but would have to pay rent to cover the mortgage etc, something she had never done, although she has a good job as a ward sister she'd never contributed anything other than what you would expect to pay to live, food etc.
unfortunatley that wasn't good enough so the next offer was to buy the place at a really knocked down price to clear the debt, again not good enough so I'm sure by now you know where this is going, yep she made a beneficial interest claim on the house.
So after two years going back and forth bending over backwards to help this woman we end up with a three day trial to decide what happens.
as expected she lost her claim, turns out that buying cushions and pots and pans doesn't give you a beneficial interest in a property.
by this point we've spent £70000 on legal fees and mortgage payments because she was still in the house.
she was ordered by the judge to pay our fees but surprise surprise she declared herself bankrupt giving us no chance of getting our money back, money we'd had to remortgage our house to pay
she was discharged from bankruptcy in march this year which is unbelievable.
anyway to get to my point, when we finally got her out of the house we found that she had trashed the place and stolen stuff the house needed, along with leaving 4 skips worth of rubbish to get rid of, in total to put these things right it cost us another £4000
so my question is if anyone can help is can I take this woman to the small claims court to recover the £4000? It's nothing compared to what we have lost but still a lot of money.
she does still work so I think it's only right she pays but don't know the legal side regarding her bankruptcy
many thanks in in advance for any advice
reg
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