Joint Mortgage, ex wont dicuss.

[Cityslicker]

I am trapped in a joint mortgage at the moment, paying way over the odds on the mortgage deal (deal has expired, and stuck on standard rate) costing about £300 a month extra due to this. I still live at the property, and solely pay for the whole mortgage. My ex refuses to deal with this issue, and has failed to respond to my letters, and solicitors letters. Can I take her to the small claims court for half the mortgage payments? I have evidence she originally agreed to pay half of it. I cannot afford the £10k estimate the solicitor has quoted to get this sorted.

[jaguarsuk]

I am trapped in a joint mortgage at the moment, paying way over the odds on the mortgage deal (deal has expired, and stuck on standard rate) costing about £300 a month extra due to this. I still live at the property, and solely pay for the whole mortgage. My ex refuses to deal with this issue, and has failed to respond to my letters, and solicitors letters. Can I take her to the small claims court for half the mortgage payments? I have evidence she originally agreed to pay half of it. I cannot afford the £10k estimate the solicitor has quoted to get this sorted.

The problem is that you have an ongoing variable commitment to meet, so how can you estimate and thus claim for your loss at this stage?

You need to deal with getting the ex removed from the mortgage first, then you will be able to switch to a better deal and then it will be possible to claim for half of each payment from the ex leaving to the point they came off the mortgage.

[Cityslicker]

This has been like this a few years. She wont discuss anything. I just need to know if I can take her to the small claims court for half of the mortgage money that I have had to pay for her.

[jaguarsuk]

This has been like this a few years. She wont discuss anything. I just need to know if I can take her to the small claims court for half of the mortgage money that I have had to pay for her.

You could issue a claim for the amount to date, but not for future payments and may be successful. Were you to do the same once or more times in the future then those claims might be struck out as vexatious litigation though. It is better to resolve the issue and then claim for your whole loss once resolved in one claim.

If it were me I would look at what the cost of bein gon the standard variable rate is going to cost me, especially with the potential rate changes Brexit might bring about over the life time of the mortgage and weigh that against spending the £10K to resolve this properly with a solicitor.

Just because you take your ex to small claims and even if you win, if they refuse to pay up and bailiffs can't enforce the judgement then all you have is a bit of paper whilst still being in the same boat.