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3 years after voluntarily leaving, ex (unmarried) wants house or bribe
Hello - I'm really sorry about the length of this. I've tried to keep it as factual and "bullet points" as possible. Reading it back, it all seems so nuts. As someone said, "you're deep inside WTF territory"!.
I totally understand that I'll need proper legal advice - as mentioned below, I have something pencilled in for Tuesday.
The deal is that if I write reasonably concise narrative and bring in the key documents, they will give me the first hour half price at £120 inc, and from that should be able to tell what my options and chances are.
The first actual appointment I could get was next Tuesday, but given that the 21 day extortion offer expires that Friday, I really need to hit the ground running and ensure I've hit the nut from every angle.
So far, I've been told:
• Niche case, no way of knowing which way it could go in court.
• Fighting it could cost up to £20k each, one of us could lose £40k of our son's future to lawyers. Flip of a coin.
• Avoid TOLATA if possible - it can be very expensive.
• No legal aid possible as no child welfare or abuse issues.
If one of you lovely people spots something immediate I can do without involving solicitors then fantastic! But failing that, I am hoping to get an idea as to whether the narrative below gives is too little, too much, or just right. Let's try and aim for The Goldilocks Narrative! Thank you all.
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In 2008, I purchased a property outright for myself and partner to live in, and paid for it 100% myself.
The attendance attached to the deeds notes that:
"They had thought about putting the property into [my] sole name but I [the solicitor] said that this meant that they would be faced with further Land Registry fees in order to transfer into joint names. My initial view was that they should hold the property as tenants in common since [I] am providing 100% of the purchase monies. However, in view of the fact that they plan to marry within the year and [I] wanted to make sure that [my ex] was provided for in the event of anything happening to [me], we jointly decided that it would be more appropriate to put the property into their joint names as beneficial joint tenants"
Key points here: At the time, I missed the thing about "plan to marry within a year" - absolutely no plans were made and we never married.
At the time of signing the deeds, I almost jokingly asked her whether this was a safe thing to do. She replied, "don't be ridiculous, if I ever left, I'd never take you for anything, I'd just go" - and pointed out that she'd done precisely that in her previous marriage.
On this basis, I signed. I would quite obviously NOT have signed if I had understood the implication that the addendum apparently means nothing, and had assumed that no solicitor would have suggested something which was ultimately harmful to his client.
• 8 years later in January 2016, she just upped and left to live with someone else.
• No accusation of anything on my side.
• No arguments about custody of our then 5-and-a-half year old son.
• 2 months later, a letter came from a solicitor saying "Her name's on the deeds, pay £60k now or we'll take you for half the house". (would be approx £100k)
• Advice was: Ignore, she's trying to provoke a response, wait and see. Nothing came of it.
• 2 months later, a different solicitor wrote. I did the same.
• Later again, a third solicitor wrote - I guess she was hawking round the freebies getting what she could.
Her parents had contributed £9k towards the £21k cost of essential roof repair and replacement windows, but all regular bills/shopping were split 50/50. So to be fair, I offered to give her £13k, which is £4k more than the entire tangible amount she put into the house. I calculated that this gives her a total in-kind benefit of over £50k given that no rent, mortgage or deposit was paid by her in 8 years, and would settle it with no need for future animosity. This is also the very maximum I could possibly raise via loans without remortgaging or selling the house.
It went quiet for a long time. In fact, we actually functioned quite well for a year, coming in for coffee when swapping over, going to parents evenings together.
Then suddenly in January 2019, a recorded letter arrived on Saturday. It was dated as being written the previous Saturday, not posted until the Friday after, and gave me an arbitary 21 days to agree to pay £50k, to be paid within 56 days, or he'd force sale the house and divide 50/50 (note that this has dropped £10k from the original demand).
EFFECTS:
• She knows option 1 is not viable - far from having any savings, I sunk literally everything into the house and have nearly £15k personal debt, so this this basically gives me no choice but to sell the house either way
• This would kick both myself and my 8 year old son out of our home since his birth, where he lives 50% of the time and loves it here
• I have my sole source of income here (small recording studio).
FACTS
• Her solicitor is accusing me of not engaging in mediation. That's demonstrably not true.
• She earns considerably more than me but has contributed < £300 in child maintenance in 3 years since leaving.
• She's contributed nothing towards any bills relating to the property since leaving.
OPTIONS suggested so far:
• I could consider an application under the children act.
• Or "Schedule 1 - property adjustment order", but apparently this could be reverted when he's 18?
The letter was timed to arrive when she knew full well that I was on business in South Wales the week after it arrived, which effectively gave me 10 working days to get my head round it.
I consider all of the above, including the original solicitor's advice, to be unreasonable. What are my options?
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End of proposed narrative.
I totally understand that I'll need proper legal advice - as mentioned below, I have something pencilled in for Tuesday.
The deal is that if I write reasonably concise narrative and bring in the key documents, they will give me the first hour half price at £120 inc, and from that should be able to tell what my options and chances are.
The first actual appointment I could get was next Tuesday, but given that the 21 day extortion offer expires that Friday, I really need to hit the ground running and ensure I've hit the nut from every angle.
So far, I've been told:
• Niche case, no way of knowing which way it could go in court.
• Fighting it could cost up to £20k each, one of us could lose £40k of our son's future to lawyers. Flip of a coin.
• Avoid TOLATA if possible - it can be very expensive.
• No legal aid possible as no child welfare or abuse issues.
If one of you lovely people spots something immediate I can do without involving solicitors then fantastic! But failing that, I am hoping to get an idea as to whether the narrative below gives is too little, too much, or just right. Let's try and aim for The Goldilocks Narrative! Thank you all.
---------------------
In 2008, I purchased a property outright for myself and partner to live in, and paid for it 100% myself.
The attendance attached to the deeds notes that:
"They had thought about putting the property into [my] sole name but I [the solicitor] said that this meant that they would be faced with further Land Registry fees in order to transfer into joint names. My initial view was that they should hold the property as tenants in common since [I] am providing 100% of the purchase monies. However, in view of the fact that they plan to marry within the year and [I] wanted to make sure that [my ex] was provided for in the event of anything happening to [me], we jointly decided that it would be more appropriate to put the property into their joint names as beneficial joint tenants"
Key points here: At the time, I missed the thing about "plan to marry within a year" - absolutely no plans were made and we never married.
At the time of signing the deeds, I almost jokingly asked her whether this was a safe thing to do. She replied, "don't be ridiculous, if I ever left, I'd never take you for anything, I'd just go" - and pointed out that she'd done precisely that in her previous marriage.
On this basis, I signed. I would quite obviously NOT have signed if I had understood the implication that the addendum apparently means nothing, and had assumed that no solicitor would have suggested something which was ultimately harmful to his client.
• 8 years later in January 2016, she just upped and left to live with someone else.
• No accusation of anything on my side.
• No arguments about custody of our then 5-and-a-half year old son.
• 2 months later, a letter came from a solicitor saying "Her name's on the deeds, pay £60k now or we'll take you for half the house". (would be approx £100k)
• Advice was: Ignore, she's trying to provoke a response, wait and see. Nothing came of it.
• 2 months later, a different solicitor wrote. I did the same.
• Later again, a third solicitor wrote - I guess she was hawking round the freebies getting what she could.
Her parents had contributed £9k towards the £21k cost of essential roof repair and replacement windows, but all regular bills/shopping were split 50/50. So to be fair, I offered to give her £13k, which is £4k more than the entire tangible amount she put into the house. I calculated that this gives her a total in-kind benefit of over £50k given that no rent, mortgage or deposit was paid by her in 8 years, and would settle it with no need for future animosity. This is also the very maximum I could possibly raise via loans without remortgaging or selling the house.
It went quiet for a long time. In fact, we actually functioned quite well for a year, coming in for coffee when swapping over, going to parents evenings together.
Then suddenly in January 2019, a recorded letter arrived on Saturday. It was dated as being written the previous Saturday, not posted until the Friday after, and gave me an arbitary 21 days to agree to pay £50k, to be paid within 56 days, or he'd force sale the house and divide 50/50 (note that this has dropped £10k from the original demand).
EFFECTS:
• She knows option 1 is not viable - far from having any savings, I sunk literally everything into the house and have nearly £15k personal debt, so this this basically gives me no choice but to sell the house either way
• This would kick both myself and my 8 year old son out of our home since his birth, where he lives 50% of the time and loves it here
• I have my sole source of income here (small recording studio).
FACTS
• Her solicitor is accusing me of not engaging in mediation. That's demonstrably not true.
• She earns considerably more than me but has contributed < £300 in child maintenance in 3 years since leaving.
• She's contributed nothing towards any bills relating to the property since leaving.
OPTIONS suggested so far:
• I could consider an application under the children act.
• Or "Schedule 1 - property adjustment order", but apparently this could be reverted when he's 18?
The letter was timed to arrive when she knew full well that I was on business in South Wales the week after it arrived, which effectively gave me 10 working days to get my head round it.
I consider all of the above, including the original solicitor's advice, to be unreasonable. What are my options?
---------------------
End of proposed narrative.
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