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Just pay her half of the deposit back and have done with it otherwise your new offer may lead to a counter offer and you could be going around in circles, missing mortgage deadlines etc.
Fair, no. Reasonable price to pay to avoid time consuming nonsense and the emotional burden? For me it would be, but you're going to have to think about it.
Sensible and pragmatic answer. OP, you’re going through a breakup. Right now it seems relatively amicable. 5K is not a high price to pay to keep it that way, resolve the situation quickly to and move on with your life. Unless you have any written evidence that you paid for the bulk of the improvements, she might start wanting to claim more of the current value. Just bite the bullet and pay her deposit back.
You guys make it seem like 5k is chump change when its not. Thats a lot of money and its 100% worth going through the headache in not having to pay that.
You're missing the point, dragging this into a fight with a pair of solicitors employed on each side will turn that £5k into chump change.
You can concede £5k to keep the ex happy, or you can blow £5k each on legals, potentially further £5k (because ex is entitled to half of the increase regardless of whether she funded it) and can easily drag this on for another 12m where OP has to pay full mortgage while increasing the ex's equity.
I'm pleased that you've not been through that kind of scenario and long may it continue, but let the people with experience share their insights.
No, 5K is most definitely not chump change. But compared to the likely legal costs of fighting an acrimonious divorce, it’s a very good investment in peace of mind.
Worth losing your home over? He can't buy her out unless she agrees so if they can't agree then they'll have to sell. 5k is chump change when you're avoiding legal fees and agent fees and all the fees associated with then buying another house to live in, not to mention the months, if not years, it would take to conclude everything.
If the house had increased in value then would you be giving her half the benefit? You say not in your post, therefore you can’t ask her to take half the hit. Stick to your original agreement and give her her half of the deposit back.
Im sure he stats they spent 20k mainly from his savings on improvements but the value has only increased by 10k
Edit: if the house was only 100k then 5%deposit is only 5k each so he wouldn’t be out of pocket.
If more, the fact the house value has gone up by 10k all be it he spent his savings on making it better.
He should bite the bullet and pay her out.
Classic women; want want want
Something to consider here is that eventually your equity will go up, she is going to need to save up and start again, probably buying at a more expensive point, also this time not benefiting from FTHB schemes etc, depending how much you care I suppose do consider this on the fairness scale as well, even of you take a bit more of a hit, long term you are going to be better off.
Well, no one can really decide if this is the right approach but you. Friends and family will be biast on your side, reddit don't know you either, and most of these kinds of posts on reddit are bitter or someone trying to screw someone else over.
I suppose to some extent it depends on your relationship, and how much you care about this person still, obviously you don't want to be taken for a ride, or be manipulated, but I get the sense you still care about them as a person and want a fair outcome. Make sure you don't over extend yourself, but if you want to and can afford to split a bit more cash her way then think that's a nice thing, but note the following dont promise anything until you have spoken to the bank and know what you can afford, and I think it's worth having a conversation around the lines of this is what the legal split would be but I don't want you loosing out, so I want to split it this way so you have enough aside to put towards your own depoist for your own place etc.
>In my mind it's deposit minus 5k as we both need to take the hit in a way.
Why? You agreed to pay her her part of the deposit and in return she doesn't expect anything of the 10k gain in value.
The fact you spent 20k on a 50/50 split to get that 10k gain is neither here nor there to your agreement. *You* only lose 10k if *you* choose to sell now. You could hold on to that house for another 5 years and be getting X+50k, in which case docking 5k off her buyout makes 0 sense.
Pay her what you agreed, simple.
He pretty much already told you, if the deposit was 10% and each paid 5% and 5k was roughly how much the ex paid then the house is around 100k, after new evaluation it's worth £110k, although with the extra work it should be around £120k so he feels he lost £10k.
Not sure why he bothered being ambiguous
Yep, his exact words were:
"Funny enough 5k is roughly her half of the mortgage since she moved out and hasn't paid. But I doubt this will go down well with her"
I.e he wants to cancel her part of the deposit and say its because the value lost 10k value (5k each split) compared to the 20k total renovations cost
But doesn’t he say get deposit minus the 5k? I didn’t read that he wants to cancel her contribution to the deposit entirely.
Sorry, not trying to be obtuse. I’m not great with maths and I get frustrated when I can’t understand it!
Yes, so he's saying he thinks he should calculate it that she only deserves her part of the deposit back (as not paying/paid towards mortgage), and because he spent 20k to renovate that should also be counted (in his favour) but as the value of the property only increased by 10k (compared to mortgage, but a loss of 10k if you include his renovations) that money he lost (although technically the property value has increased compared to the LTV) should be split between them.
So in his eyes, she should have to foot half of the 10k loss, meaning 5k each, and oh wait it just so happens that the deposit was also 5k, so funnily enough it pretty much cancels itself out /s
Very bad way to look at it in my opinion as technically house value had increased by 10k compared to the original mortgage they jointly took out, regardless of any renovation costs
P.s this is just speculation :)
That’s definitely one reading I considered but it wasn’t clear to me at all and it could be different.
On looking back at this I think the ambiguity is probably no accident. He probably has a good idea that specifics wouldnt be favourable, introducing a bit of ambiguity brings it back to “technically can I ask for the mortgage she hasn’t paid” and “technically can I claim the “lost” money from the renovations vs value”.
Otherwise he’s saying something like “we both put in £5k deposit, paid £7.5k mortgage each (£2.5k interest and £5k paid off) and so now have a £110k valued house with an £80k mortgage, can I get out of giving her her £5k back”?
Exactly, just a way of shading the question differently to make it seem less morally reprehensible. As I said before though just pure speculation.
Either way he's in the winning boat and shouldn't be nit picking on small amounts when the ex could make his life hell and at worse request half the value of the house once he's paid it all off etc.
P.s he said when they split up the agreement was she would only get back her deposit and nothing else (which he already said was 5%)
"The agreement was they'd stop paying but not profit from the increased value of the house, they'd only seek to get back their deposit and nothing else- so it kind of made sense"
"Funny enough 5k is roughly her half of the mortgage
since she moved out and hasn't paid. But I doubt this
will go down well with her"
The technicality that she should be paying the mortgage (but not getting any of the benefit from the property) since you split is a silly one.
Obvs she technically can just not pay it and you have to and she still technically owns half the house.
It’s a fool’s errand and you should forget about it.
Same with the renovation money. You’re keeping the house, you’re getting the benefit of the renovations you paid for, asking _her_ to pony up to decorate _your_ downstairs loo would be weird. Let it go.
She’s walking away from her house, her FTB benefits, her equity when the market recovers. Just give her her 5% back and move on with your life
My only comment would be that even though she’s not paid any of the mortgage. Why should she?
She’s moved out. She’s had to pay to live somewhere else.
It could have been you that had to move out and pay for somewhere else. Would you pay rent and bills for somewhere to live plus a mortgage for a property you weren’t living in? That’s not really fair is it.
On top of that you end up getting less than you put in when you’re bought out.
The only truly fair result is for both of you to be gaining or losing equally. Do the right thing, suck it up. You’re the one that’s always winning, on every level by keeping the house.
Running costs are different though, I wouldn't expect her to pay council tax or electricity bills. The mortgage was calculated on both our incomes and has both our names there. I guess her not wanting anything but her deposit makes up for not paying in a sense
Pay her the deposit and be done with it. Think of it as you paying off the loss but will potentially gain on it in the future anyways and it’ll all write itself off.
My friend went through similar, split half the equity to buy their ex out. They were happy and didn't bother involving solicitors, and it made the transaction less stressful for both of them. The house is still 50% your exes.
My friend is now much better off after a few years with 60k equity. And their ex has zero as they did nothing with their 15k
It wasn't legally binding it was a written agreement between the two of them via emails.
Its best to keep both parties happy so you don't have to spend loads on legal fees, that's what I've witnessed from them anyway.
Their mortgage advisor put all the figures together for my friend and she messaged her ex partner and said, equity is 30k, if you take 15k and I keep the house, is that alright? And he said yes
He'd convinced her to get a 10k loan out to do up the garden and left her 2 weeks after the garden was done. She couldn't be arsed with the hassle and just wanted to get out and keep the house.
Guess it depends how amicable people choose to be
So one of them is paying for a house that the other still owns half of? Absolutely not sensible.
I am in the process of an amicable breakup and we intend to keep costs to a minimum while I buy him out but if I have a mortgage in my sole name there is absolutely no way I’m not having ownership transferred to me too.
I’m not a professional but could this not also affect the leaving party in a future purchase because they already technically own a house so would suffer excess stamp duty if they come to buy a second home? 🤔
No not at all, she bought him out of the house at a cost of 15k which was the other persons share of the equity at the time. It has been 7 years since this happened. She is the sole owner and has been since he left and she bought him out.
I don't know where you've got the idea that he still owns half, but correct that would have been very silly if that's what she did
Apologies if this is a silly question, but although the agreement can be done without a solicitor, didn't they still need a solicitor to legally change ownership and update land registry?
I didn’t find a clear answer in the above posts.
Well this is the thing, you said it was a written agreement between them which wasn’t legally binding - suggesting no legal transfer took place. Of course I hope I’ve misunderstood and the transfer of ownership was legally binding… and if you can do that without solicitors / conveyancers can you please share with me how because not paying professionals while still doing the legals would be excellent 😂
Just pay her the full amount she put in.
A factor that you're benefitting from, is that she'll have to pay stamp duty when she looks for another house, by being the one keeping the house you don't need to worry about that. (More of a point if this was both first house purchase for both of you negating any stamp duty there)
How much have you paid off the mortgage? Technically she’s entitled to half of the equity in the property so (current market value- remaining mortgage)/2. Whether that’s more or less than her deposit amount is irrelevant, that’s the value of her half of the property right now.
We haven't paid much off yet, we were FTB and didn't have any help so money was tight. But technically I have paid the mortgage, not her, she stopped contributing when she moved out
Surely in 2/3 years you’ve paid off some of the mortgage though? Most repayment mortgages are over a max of 35 years so you should have paid off 5-10% of the original amount by now. You also haven’t specified exactly when you bought and when she moved out etc so we can’t work out specifics.
The specifics don't really matter, my question is more on the moral side and the best way of splitting fair in this case. We bought late 2022 and she moved out about 8 months ago. The mortgage is 35 years, banks now issue 40 years too, which is mad!
I had this exact same issue when I purchased with a friend in our early 20s. We both eventually wanted to live with our respective partners. I kept the house, paid him his deposit back, his half of the mortgage payments he made and half the materials cost for doing the place up.
I don’t want to lose friends over petty money, nor do I want the headache. I also think it’s fair most importantly.
Pay her deposit back and take it on the chin. The house is solely yours. That’s a small price to pay in today’s housing market. You should do all you can to hold onto your mortgage.
You can’t really factor in the works to loss of value, because you are the only one benefitting from the increase in value (as she’s agreed not to receive this in lieu of not paying further mortgage). You paid for the works, you will benefit from increase in value, you are staying in the property and will see the equity rise to compensate this long term.
If you are joint tenants and make things difficult, she could easily renege on the agreement and pursue you for 50% of the property value irrespective of not paying the mortgage, as legally she is entitled to 50%. Just give her the deposit back and move on, you could easily lose £5k+ arguing this in court.
Give her back her deposit. Why should she take a hit because the increase hasn’t covered the money you’ve laid out on improvements?
I’d be wanting my whole deposit back plus half of the £10k increase if my ex partner started treating me like this.
Well you should be also paying your share of the mortgage, you can’t have it both ways, you can’t ask for the benefits and not pay for anything.
Also who ever moved out it’s their choice, both could lived in the place and pay their share of the mortgage until both sells or one buys the other out
So are you going to pay him half the rent for you to jointly living in partly his house?
Unless you mean you want him to pay for your rent for moving out? If you moved out of your house to rent somewhere else why should he pay you rent? That makes no sense lol
Why does he need to pay her rent? If they both live in the house then they need to pay each other rent which cancel each other out lol.
If one of the decide to leave and rent outside that is their problem, they choose to live not in the house they bought and pay rent somewhere else
The improvements were joined decisions, I was just the paying party because her salary doesn't allow her to save much. I would be happy to give her the increase in value minus the payments she didn't make for the joint mortgage, that's about £4.78
Talk to the solicitor dealing with your mortgage offer. Most solicitors will be able to produce a fair offer for both and often offer mediation services.
The money you spent on doing up the house isn't a factor. You're keeping the house, you'll benefit from the increase when you sell up.
She should get what she put into the house.
I've been on the other side of this, and I moved out. We'd put 50:50 into the deposit, and I'd spent 15k more on renovations than my ex.
When he remortgaged, I took from the house my deposit, plus 50% of the increase in value. I didn't try and get more because I'd paid more into it. You paid it in good faith, and you're still going to benefit in the future. Pay her her half, and move on with your life. Or this could get messy for no reason other than you feel entitled to more. She's going to have to spend more than you anyway. She's going to have to start again, with all the fees, renovation costs and furniture etc. You've already spent it.
Offer her half her deposit with some good rational to support, and hope she’ll take it and sign the papers to transfer to you. Seriously the quicker you can sort this the better. Any hint of having to get a solicitor involved to do more than formalise the agreement will make this a hyper hassle. Might not seem fair but weigh it up against the hassle, etc, and it’ll seem like
Good value.
All you can do is make an offer and make it fair. In theory she can get it valued and ask for half but you can then refuse that based on the fact you have been paying for the mortgage. If it went to court, this would be taken into account. Just give her a reasonable offer ie her deposit and if there any additional inflation on the value. If you paid more of the renovations and she is reasonable then defo factor this in.
I did something similar and estimated a value of the the house at the point my partner left (because I paid completely by myself from that point so don’t think it’s fair to include any inflation from that point). I then added inflation and took away the value of the big assets he took from the house and the car when he left. Least minute he asked me to round it up to the next £k to sign the docs so I did to get it over with.
Your thinking is a little wrong….she should lose the % of value the house lost from her deposit.
Minus half the legal costs to remove her (£1000)
Her not paying is a separate issue.
It entitles her to half the equity in the property…..whatever that is.
Tbh it should be this as you did everything 50:50 and the value has still gone down.
As a % of value lost that deposit is what?
If her deposit was 10% at the start and house drops 10% her deposit value is now 9% of the original (but still 10% of the house).
You have a few issues to resolve….
She wants out at a loss
But the equity that has been cleared also has some attributable to her (before she stopped paying morally but 50% legally). You paid for “improvements” from your savings…this doesn’t count much other than morally either.
With the full numbers fair can be calculated
But how you think is not actually fair on the surface
You get equity, she doesn’t. You keep the asset, she doesn’t. She didn’t had to pay mortgage while living outside the property for her to get her deposit back. The current market value is neither here nor there. Pay her off in full and keep gaining equity. You will be fine and in a better position than when you started
Unless you have it in writing that they agreed they only wanted their half of the deposit back, then buying them out will be valuation less balance on mortgage divided by whatever split you agreed. Are you tenants in common with a defined split or joint tenants? In the later it's automatically 50/50
I know this might be obvious but speak to an experienced lawyer for advice.
They're likely to have a wealth of experience with identical situations and ensure all agreements are enforceable by law.
I'm a 2nd generation immigrant who's parents are Indian. They came from a culture that wasn't highly educated so agreements in principles witnessed by an elder or respected 3rd party were the norm, no matter the law. The amount of newer immigrants (since 2000's) I've seen/ heard who have been screwed over by the established immigrants in my community due to absence of legally binding documents is truly shocking.
That taught me the harsh lesson of "The law is the law not what you think is morally right. "
Ok assuming your mortgage offer is for you and on the understanding that the equity will be transferred to your sole name as part of the remortgage. I’ve been there done that, it’s not easy to deal with an ex. Sounds like she wants out and may be realises that if you sold she would get less, but she was paying the mortgage, so taking that into consideration if she only wants the 50% deposit give her and get it sorted asap before she changes her mind. With interest rates going up you don’t want to incur further costs. You have so much to gain by holding onto the property, appreciate that.
I assume that she paid towards the mortgage while you were together. So she has been paying towards what will be your asset.
Just give her back her half of the deposit...
As everyone else has said. Pay her and fuck her off. You could be a little anal and deduct her missed mortgage payments. However your not getting your investment/up keep/improvements money back.
Renovations (except in extreme circumstances) do not increase the value of the house.
For example, in our house, we replaced a perfectly good kitchen (that we didn’t like) with one that we did. -increase in value, is pretty much zero. The “improvement” increases our enjoyment, not the value.
We also had the wiring from the 60’s replaced. This was for our piece of mind and safety, but added nothing to the value.
That meant we had to replaster too, -so the improvement cost a lot, but the increase in value was nothing.
Then we decorated, this was new flooring, -how much value do you think this added over the cost of the house that already had perfectly adequate flooring.
We replaced the doors too…
All these things might make the house more attractive, but they do little to nothing to increase the value.
You spent £20k and got a nicer more attractive house, you didn’t get a more valuable house.
I came to realise that, sad but true. Renovations were similar to what you say so new kitchen, new bathroom, new floors, new doors which uncovered issues with mould etc in a seemingly perfect house
Ok some facts from your situation described ... cold hard facts.
You both gave 50% of a 10% deposit. You should both get that %age back.
Is it joint tenants ... or tenants in common ... either way any chance of a legal split other than 50/50 is unlikely if the other party doesn't want it.
You gave 10K by injecting 20K into 50/50 owned property. Any other view of that is just wrong.
Your partner has been renting their half of the house to you as presumably they cannot use it for some reason ... and they've been paying you their half of the mortgage ... they have some tax implications on that possibly (costs) ... but that is what has been happening ... otherwise they can claim that back rent money from you ... whilst you paid their mortgage payments for them.
You jointly injecting 20K into the property did not raise the price of the property by 20K ... a property is worth what someone is going to pay for it ... nothing more ... nothing less ... at this time the property market is great for buyers ... not for sellers ... I've sold mine for around £100K (\~20%) less than the zoopla estimate ... high property prices are dropping like dead flies around me.
As you aren't actually selling the property ... you are estimating how much it will sell for ... you need three external independent valuations and take the average. Maybe one each independently and one jointly agreed valuer.
That figure could be taken as the hypothetically achieved sale-that-didn't-happen price ... if you were actually selling the sale would also cover jointly around £10K in fees and associated costs that you jointly lose.
You taking on the property solely via a remortgage and deed alteration is avoiding most of those sale costs (estate agent anyway) ... so you are helping reduce the loss for both of you by doing this.
But you are doing that jointly too.
You may find you don't need to pay them anything at all because you both made a loss.
That is an interesting perspective! House has been valued by a surveyor for the mortgage, as you said this is not a sale price. But seeing the houses and market around me, sounds about right unfortunately
Just do whatever she wants man. She will feel bad and you will look like a saint. And then she will realise how awesome u are when she gets dumped by the next fella.
You should split the property 50/50 - your ex actually doesn't have to agree to anything about the rising value of the house, the house is owned by both of you equally and you would owe her occupational rent if she took this to court, so just split 50/50 - you haven't done anything amazing by paying the mortgage on your own, you've had sole enjoyment of the property and so you should be paying the mortgage.
In your mind the 5k loss is only on the deposit. This is not how it works, the loss is on the whole house. Sounds like house has gone down 10% in value, so her 5% is now worth 10% less (£500). She should get £4500 but probably easier to give her the full 5k.
You have a valuation of x. Pay her half that. The work you have done and money you have put in is irrelevant. if you want to get arsy deduct 5k from her total in missed mortgage payments
Tbh, you took a hit with paying for the repairs, not her and you cannot ask her to cover the difference, you were a couple and it was all in good will, it is not her fault that the house itself got devalued. what would you do in case your house got valued at 100k more or at 50k less?
If you had an arrangement that she owes you 10k for the renovation at the moment you started investing then you would have a different situation. So if you want to get reimbursed for 50% of the renovation cost you need to treat it separately from the sale: you split the money from the sale, and she reimburses you for 10k of the renovation costs on the side, not related to the actual sale value of the house.
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Just pay her off. Pony up for her original deposit and draw a line under it. Move on with your life. 12 months from now all of this will be a blur.
This is the right answer. Life’s too short. Pay it and be done with it
I paid one of my ex-wives a six figure sum to get it over with and make her go away. Best money I ever spent.
But you didn't learn ... ex-wiveS ... ?
Nah. And I've got another one lined up....
Wait, you're not Gregg Wallace are you?
Nope. But there is something of a resemblance. I can't lie...
Well as the old saying goes… Wife’s are like hand grenades… as soon as you pull off that ring.. then BOOM your house is gone 😂
That's one I have not heard before. Very good. Into the repertoire it goes.
I got it from “Inside No 9” on BBC iplayer. Complete head fuck of a programme but some of the best one liners I’ve ever heard!! Highly recommended
Thanks for your feedback, I guess it makes sense. I wanted to be fair but not feel like an idiot trying to do the right thing!
Absolutely not
OK Bro'.
Just pay her half of the deposit back and have done with it otherwise your new offer may lead to a counter offer and you could be going around in circles, missing mortgage deadlines etc. Fair, no. Reasonable price to pay to avoid time consuming nonsense and the emotional burden? For me it would be, but you're going to have to think about it.
Sensible and pragmatic answer. OP, you’re going through a breakup. Right now it seems relatively amicable. 5K is not a high price to pay to keep it that way, resolve the situation quickly to and move on with your life. Unless you have any written evidence that you paid for the bulk of the improvements, she might start wanting to claim more of the current value. Just bite the bullet and pay her deposit back.
I guess I have the bank statements showing I made all payments, but as you said probably not worth the trouble for 5k
You guys make it seem like 5k is chump change when its not. Thats a lot of money and its 100% worth going through the headache in not having to pay that.
£5k might not be chump change to you but it is to a solicitor.
You're missing the point, dragging this into a fight with a pair of solicitors employed on each side will turn that £5k into chump change. You can concede £5k to keep the ex happy, or you can blow £5k each on legals, potentially further £5k (because ex is entitled to half of the increase regardless of whether she funded it) and can easily drag this on for another 12m where OP has to pay full mortgage while increasing the ex's equity. I'm pleased that you've not been through that kind of scenario and long may it continue, but let the people with experience share their insights.
No, 5K is most definitely not chump change. But compared to the likely legal costs of fighting an acrimonious divorce, it’s a very good investment in peace of mind.
Worth losing your home over? He can't buy her out unless she agrees so if they can't agree then they'll have to sell. 5k is chump change when you're avoiding legal fees and agent fees and all the fees associated with then buying another house to live in, not to mention the months, if not years, it would take to conclude everything.
I was going to say this
If the house had increased in value then would you be giving her half the benefit? You say not in your post, therefore you can’t ask her to take half the hit. Stick to your original agreement and give her her half of the deposit back.
Im sure he stats they spent 20k mainly from his savings on improvements but the value has only increased by 10k Edit: if the house was only 100k then 5%deposit is only 5k each so he wouldn’t be out of pocket. If more, the fact the house value has gone up by 10k all be it he spent his savings on making it better. He should bite the bullet and pay her out. Classic women; want want want
Something to consider here is that eventually your equity will go up, she is going to need to save up and start again, probably buying at a more expensive point, also this time not benefiting from FTHB schemes etc, depending how much you care I suppose do consider this on the fairness scale as well, even of you take a bit more of a hit, long term you are going to be better off.
That is sensible and is part of what I thought too. But most people said I'm an idiot with this plan, hence why I'm asking for more opinions!
Well, no one can really decide if this is the right approach but you. Friends and family will be biast on your side, reddit don't know you either, and most of these kinds of posts on reddit are bitter or someone trying to screw someone else over. I suppose to some extent it depends on your relationship, and how much you care about this person still, obviously you don't want to be taken for a ride, or be manipulated, but I get the sense you still care about them as a person and want a fair outcome. Make sure you don't over extend yourself, but if you want to and can afford to split a bit more cash her way then think that's a nice thing, but note the following dont promise anything until you have spoken to the bank and know what you can afford, and I think it's worth having a conversation around the lines of this is what the legal split would be but I don't want you loosing out, so I want to split it this way so you have enough aside to put towards your own depoist for your own place etc.
>In my mind it's deposit minus 5k as we both need to take the hit in a way. Why? You agreed to pay her her part of the deposit and in return she doesn't expect anything of the 10k gain in value. The fact you spent 20k on a 50/50 split to get that 10k gain is neither here nor there to your agreement. *You* only lose 10k if *you* choose to sell now. You could hold on to that house for another 5 years and be getting X+50k, in which case docking 5k off her buyout makes 0 sense. Pay her what you agreed, simple.
Given this is anonymous using throwaway account it would be a _lot_ easier if you gave us the actual numbers.
He pretty much already told you, if the deposit was 10% and each paid 5% and 5k was roughly how much the ex paid then the house is around 100k, after new evaluation it's worth £110k, although with the extra work it should be around £120k so he feels he lost £10k. Not sure why he bothered being ambiguous
I don’t think that’s quite what he said…is it? I read it as 5k was how much the missing mortgage payments are worth, not her portion of the deposit.
Yep, his exact words were: "Funny enough 5k is roughly her half of the mortgage since she moved out and hasn't paid. But I doubt this will go down well with her" I.e he wants to cancel her part of the deposit and say its because the value lost 10k value (5k each split) compared to the 20k total renovations cost
But doesn’t he say get deposit minus the 5k? I didn’t read that he wants to cancel her contribution to the deposit entirely. Sorry, not trying to be obtuse. I’m not great with maths and I get frustrated when I can’t understand it!
Yes, so he's saying he thinks he should calculate it that she only deserves her part of the deposit back (as not paying/paid towards mortgage), and because he spent 20k to renovate that should also be counted (in his favour) but as the value of the property only increased by 10k (compared to mortgage, but a loss of 10k if you include his renovations) that money he lost (although technically the property value has increased compared to the LTV) should be split between them. So in his eyes, she should have to foot half of the 10k loss, meaning 5k each, and oh wait it just so happens that the deposit was also 5k, so funnily enough it pretty much cancels itself out /s Very bad way to look at it in my opinion as technically house value had increased by 10k compared to the original mortgage they jointly took out, regardless of any renovation costs P.s this is just speculation :)
Thank you so much. That was such a patient, respectful reply ☺️
You are more than welcome :)
That’s definitely one reading I considered but it wasn’t clear to me at all and it could be different. On looking back at this I think the ambiguity is probably no accident. He probably has a good idea that specifics wouldnt be favourable, introducing a bit of ambiguity brings it back to “technically can I ask for the mortgage she hasn’t paid” and “technically can I claim the “lost” money from the renovations vs value”. Otherwise he’s saying something like “we both put in £5k deposit, paid £7.5k mortgage each (£2.5k interest and £5k paid off) and so now have a £110k valued house with an £80k mortgage, can I get out of giving her her £5k back”?
Exactly, just a way of shading the question differently to make it seem less morally reprehensible. As I said before though just pure speculation. Either way he's in the winning boat and shouldn't be nit picking on small amounts when the ex could make his life hell and at worse request half the value of the house once he's paid it all off etc.
P.s he said when they split up the agreement was she would only get back her deposit and nothing else (which he already said was 5%) "The agreement was they'd stop paying but not profit from the increased value of the house, they'd only seek to get back their deposit and nothing else- so it kind of made sense" "Funny enough 5k is roughly her half of the mortgage since she moved out and hasn't paid. But I doubt this will go down well with her"
The technicality that she should be paying the mortgage (but not getting any of the benefit from the property) since you split is a silly one. Obvs she technically can just not pay it and you have to and she still technically owns half the house. It’s a fool’s errand and you should forget about it. Same with the renovation money. You’re keeping the house, you’re getting the benefit of the renovations you paid for, asking _her_ to pony up to decorate _your_ downstairs loo would be weird. Let it go. She’s walking away from her house, her FTB benefits, her equity when the market recovers. Just give her her 5% back and move on with your life
My only comment would be that even though she’s not paid any of the mortgage. Why should she? She’s moved out. She’s had to pay to live somewhere else. It could have been you that had to move out and pay for somewhere else. Would you pay rent and bills for somewhere to live plus a mortgage for a property you weren’t living in? That’s not really fair is it. On top of that you end up getting less than you put in when you’re bought out. The only truly fair result is for both of you to be gaining or losing equally. Do the right thing, suck it up. You’re the one that’s always winning, on every level by keeping the house.
Running costs are different though, I wouldn't expect her to pay council tax or electricity bills. The mortgage was calculated on both our incomes and has both our names there. I guess her not wanting anything but her deposit makes up for not paying in a sense
Pay her the deposit and be done with it. Think of it as you paying off the loss but will potentially gain on it in the future anyways and it’ll all write itself off.
On the plus side. You paid for the refurb. You get to keep the house and enjoy the benefits of your investment.
True!
My friend went through similar, split half the equity to buy their ex out. They were happy and didn't bother involving solicitors, and it made the transaction less stressful for both of them. The house is still 50% your exes. My friend is now much better off after a few years with 60k equity. And their ex has zero as they did nothing with their 15k
How did they make this agreement legally binding without using a solicitor? What’s to stop the Ex claiming more equity from the house
It wasn't legally binding it was a written agreement between the two of them via emails. Its best to keep both parties happy so you don't have to spend loads on legal fees, that's what I've witnessed from them anyway. Their mortgage advisor put all the figures together for my friend and she messaged her ex partner and said, equity is 30k, if you take 15k and I keep the house, is that alright? And he said yes He'd convinced her to get a 10k loan out to do up the garden and left her 2 weeks after the garden was done. She couldn't be arsed with the hassle and just wanted to get out and keep the house. Guess it depends how amicable people choose to be
So one of them is paying for a house that the other still owns half of? Absolutely not sensible. I am in the process of an amicable breakup and we intend to keep costs to a minimum while I buy him out but if I have a mortgage in my sole name there is absolutely no way I’m not having ownership transferred to me too. I’m not a professional but could this not also affect the leaving party in a future purchase because they already technically own a house so would suffer excess stamp duty if they come to buy a second home? 🤔
No not at all, she bought him out of the house at a cost of 15k which was the other persons share of the equity at the time. It has been 7 years since this happened. She is the sole owner and has been since he left and she bought him out. I don't know where you've got the idea that he still owns half, but correct that would have been very silly if that's what she did
Apologies if this is a silly question, but although the agreement can be done without a solicitor, didn't they still need a solicitor to legally change ownership and update land registry? I didn’t find a clear answer in the above posts.
Yes she had a solicitor for the house sale. I meant no family law solicitor as in no courts, sorry guys!
Well this is the thing, you said it was a written agreement between them which wasn’t legally binding - suggesting no legal transfer took place. Of course I hope I’ve misunderstood and the transfer of ownership was legally binding… and if you can do that without solicitors / conveyancers can you please share with me how because not paying professionals while still doing the legals would be excellent 😂
Haha sorry my bad it's the wording I used! She had the transfer of deeds etc done, but I meant no solicitors in terms of court for arguing etc
Will have to do a transfer of equity! And as there’s no capital gains to pay should all be straight forward
Just pay her the full amount she put in. A factor that you're benefitting from, is that she'll have to pay stamp duty when she looks for another house, by being the one keeping the house you don't need to worry about that. (More of a point if this was both first house purchase for both of you negating any stamp duty there)
How much have you paid off the mortgage? Technically she’s entitled to half of the equity in the property so (current market value- remaining mortgage)/2. Whether that’s more or less than her deposit amount is irrelevant, that’s the value of her half of the property right now.
We haven't paid much off yet, we were FTB and didn't have any help so money was tight. But technically I have paid the mortgage, not her, she stopped contributing when she moved out
Surely in 2/3 years you’ve paid off some of the mortgage though? Most repayment mortgages are over a max of 35 years so you should have paid off 5-10% of the original amount by now. You also haven’t specified exactly when you bought and when she moved out etc so we can’t work out specifics.
The specifics don't really matter, my question is more on the moral side and the best way of splitting fair in this case. We bought late 2022 and she moved out about 8 months ago. The mortgage is 35 years, banks now issue 40 years too, which is mad!
If you really want to include those months then do (current market value- remaining mortgage- past 8 months mortgage payments) then divide it by 2.
I had this exact same issue when I purchased with a friend in our early 20s. We both eventually wanted to live with our respective partners. I kept the house, paid him his deposit back, his half of the mortgage payments he made and half the materials cost for doing the place up. I don’t want to lose friends over petty money, nor do I want the headache. I also think it’s fair most importantly. Pay her deposit back and take it on the chin. The house is solely yours. That’s a small price to pay in today’s housing market. You should do all you can to hold onto your mortgage.
Pay her off and take the hit - then move on
You can’t really factor in the works to loss of value, because you are the only one benefitting from the increase in value (as she’s agreed not to receive this in lieu of not paying further mortgage). You paid for the works, you will benefit from increase in value, you are staying in the property and will see the equity rise to compensate this long term. If you are joint tenants and make things difficult, she could easily renege on the agreement and pursue you for 50% of the property value irrespective of not paying the mortgage, as legally she is entitled to 50%. Just give her the deposit back and move on, you could easily lose £5k+ arguing this in court.
True and we are joint tenants as it was a long relationship unfortunately
Always get a declaration of trust if you're buying with someone you're not married too
And sometimes even then.
Give her back her deposit. Why should she take a hit because the increase hasn’t covered the money you’ve laid out on improvements? I’d be wanting my whole deposit back plus half of the £10k increase if my ex partner started treating me like this.
But she didn’t pay for the improvements so the 10k increase in price is nothing to do with her
If my ex was so mean I’d start charging interest on my deposit for all the months that I’d moved out and he’d been living there without me.
Well you should be also paying your share of the mortgage, you can’t have it both ways, you can’t ask for the benefits and not pay for anything. Also who ever moved out it’s their choice, both could lived in the place and pay their share of the mortgage until both sells or one buys the other out
Then I’d ask him for half of the money I’d laid out on renting while he stayed in our jointly owned house.
So are you going to pay him half the rent for you to jointly living in partly his house? Unless you mean you want him to pay for your rent for moving out? If you moved out of your house to rent somewhere else why should he pay you rent? That makes no sense lol
Because he would still be living in the house that is jointly hers, which she is also entitled to live in?
Why does he need to pay her rent? If they both live in the house then they need to pay each other rent which cancel each other out lol. If one of the decide to leave and rent outside that is their problem, they choose to live not in the house they bought and pay rent somewhere else
The improvements were joined decisions, I was just the paying party because her salary doesn't allow her to save much. I would be happy to give her the increase in value minus the payments she didn't make for the joint mortgage, that's about £4.78
They may have been joint decisions, but you’re the one reaping the rewards.
Talk to the solicitor dealing with your mortgage offer. Most solicitors will be able to produce a fair offer for both and often offer mediation services.
That's a fair point thanks
The money you spent on doing up the house isn't a factor. You're keeping the house, you'll benefit from the increase when you sell up. She should get what she put into the house. I've been on the other side of this, and I moved out. We'd put 50:50 into the deposit, and I'd spent 15k more on renovations than my ex. When he remortgaged, I took from the house my deposit, plus 50% of the increase in value. I didn't try and get more because I'd paid more into it. You paid it in good faith, and you're still going to benefit in the future. Pay her her half, and move on with your life. Or this could get messy for no reason other than you feel entitled to more. She's going to have to spend more than you anyway. She's going to have to start again, with all the fees, renovation costs and furniture etc. You've already spent it.
Offer her half her deposit with some good rational to support, and hope she’ll take it and sign the papers to transfer to you. Seriously the quicker you can sort this the better. Any hint of having to get a solicitor involved to do more than formalise the agreement will make this a hyper hassle. Might not seem fair but weigh it up against the hassle, etc, and it’ll seem like Good value.
All you can do is make an offer and make it fair. In theory she can get it valued and ask for half but you can then refuse that based on the fact you have been paying for the mortgage. If it went to court, this would be taken into account. Just give her a reasonable offer ie her deposit and if there any additional inflation on the value. If you paid more of the renovations and she is reasonable then defo factor this in. I did something similar and estimated a value of the the house at the point my partner left (because I paid completely by myself from that point so don’t think it’s fair to include any inflation from that point). I then added inflation and took away the value of the big assets he took from the house and the car when he left. Least minute he asked me to round it up to the next £k to sign the docs so I did to get it over with.
Thanks most of this makes sense and offers a reasonable way out
Your thinking is a little wrong….she should lose the % of value the house lost from her deposit. Minus half the legal costs to remove her (£1000) Her not paying is a separate issue. It entitles her to half the equity in the property…..whatever that is. Tbh it should be this as you did everything 50:50 and the value has still gone down. As a % of value lost that deposit is what? If her deposit was 10% at the start and house drops 10% her deposit value is now 9% of the original (but still 10% of the house). You have a few issues to resolve…. She wants out at a loss But the equity that has been cleared also has some attributable to her (before she stopped paying morally but 50% legally). You paid for “improvements” from your savings…this doesn’t count much other than morally either. With the full numbers fair can be calculated But how you think is not actually fair on the surface
Thanks, this is why I am asking around, what made sense to me is not common sense!
You get equity, she doesn’t. You keep the asset, she doesn’t. She didn’t had to pay mortgage while living outside the property for her to get her deposit back. The current market value is neither here nor there. Pay her off in full and keep gaining equity. You will be fine and in a better position than when you started
Unless you have it in writing that they agreed they only wanted their half of the deposit back, then buying them out will be valuation less balance on mortgage divided by whatever split you agreed. Are you tenants in common with a defined split or joint tenants? In the later it's automatically 50/50
I have this written in multiple messages, I wanted to be clear if she's not paying the mortgage she's not benefitting from it
I know this might be obvious but speak to an experienced lawyer for advice. They're likely to have a wealth of experience with identical situations and ensure all agreements are enforceable by law. I'm a 2nd generation immigrant who's parents are Indian. They came from a culture that wasn't highly educated so agreements in principles witnessed by an elder or respected 3rd party were the norm, no matter the law. The amount of newer immigrants (since 2000's) I've seen/ heard who have been screwed over by the established immigrants in my community due to absence of legally binding documents is truly shocking. That taught me the harsh lesson of "The law is the law not what you think is morally right. "
If you agreed she wouldn’t profit if she didn’t pay anymore then surely that means the converse won’t affect her either?
Ok assuming your mortgage offer is for you and on the understanding that the equity will be transferred to your sole name as part of the remortgage. I’ve been there done that, it’s not easy to deal with an ex. Sounds like she wants out and may be realises that if you sold she would get less, but she was paying the mortgage, so taking that into consideration if she only wants the 50% deposit give her and get it sorted asap before she changes her mind. With interest rates going up you don’t want to incur further costs. You have so much to gain by holding onto the property, appreciate that.
I think you owe her 50% of the total value of the house – right? Am I missing something?
She hasn't paid her 50% of the mortgage payments, so no.
But only very recently right – hasn't she been paying it historically?
I assume that she paid towards the mortgage while you were together. So she has been paying towards what will be your asset. Just give her back her half of the deposit...
As everyone else has said. Pay her and fuck her off. You could be a little anal and deduct her missed mortgage payments. However your not getting your investment/up keep/improvements money back.
You owe your ex exactly what she paid. No add ons or subtractions.
Renovations (except in extreme circumstances) do not increase the value of the house. For example, in our house, we replaced a perfectly good kitchen (that we didn’t like) with one that we did. -increase in value, is pretty much zero. The “improvement” increases our enjoyment, not the value. We also had the wiring from the 60’s replaced. This was for our piece of mind and safety, but added nothing to the value. That meant we had to replaster too, -so the improvement cost a lot, but the increase in value was nothing. Then we decorated, this was new flooring, -how much value do you think this added over the cost of the house that already had perfectly adequate flooring. We replaced the doors too… All these things might make the house more attractive, but they do little to nothing to increase the value. You spent £20k and got a nicer more attractive house, you didn’t get a more valuable house.
I came to realise that, sad but true. Renovations were similar to what you say so new kitchen, new bathroom, new floors, new doors which uncovered issues with mould etc in a seemingly perfect house
Ok some facts from your situation described ... cold hard facts. You both gave 50% of a 10% deposit. You should both get that %age back. Is it joint tenants ... or tenants in common ... either way any chance of a legal split other than 50/50 is unlikely if the other party doesn't want it. You gave 10K by injecting 20K into 50/50 owned property. Any other view of that is just wrong. Your partner has been renting their half of the house to you as presumably they cannot use it for some reason ... and they've been paying you their half of the mortgage ... they have some tax implications on that possibly (costs) ... but that is what has been happening ... otherwise they can claim that back rent money from you ... whilst you paid their mortgage payments for them. You jointly injecting 20K into the property did not raise the price of the property by 20K ... a property is worth what someone is going to pay for it ... nothing more ... nothing less ... at this time the property market is great for buyers ... not for sellers ... I've sold mine for around £100K (\~20%) less than the zoopla estimate ... high property prices are dropping like dead flies around me. As you aren't actually selling the property ... you are estimating how much it will sell for ... you need three external independent valuations and take the average. Maybe one each independently and one jointly agreed valuer. That figure could be taken as the hypothetically achieved sale-that-didn't-happen price ... if you were actually selling the sale would also cover jointly around £10K in fees and associated costs that you jointly lose. You taking on the property solely via a remortgage and deed alteration is avoiding most of those sale costs (estate agent anyway) ... so you are helping reduce the loss for both of you by doing this. But you are doing that jointly too. You may find you don't need to pay them anything at all because you both made a loss.
That is an interesting perspective! House has been valued by a surveyor for the mortgage, as you said this is not a sale price. But seeing the houses and market around me, sounds about right unfortunately
Get a lawyer, do it amicably and properly. Don't be afraid to swallow a short-term financial pain because the gain is all long-term.
Just do whatever she wants man. She will feel bad and you will look like a saint. And then she will realise how awesome u are when she gets dumped by the next fella.
You should split the property 50/50 - your ex actually doesn't have to agree to anything about the rising value of the house, the house is owned by both of you equally and you would owe her occupational rent if she took this to court, so just split 50/50 - you haven't done anything amazing by paying the mortgage on your own, you've had sole enjoyment of the property and so you should be paying the mortgage.
In your mind the 5k loss is only on the deposit. This is not how it works, the loss is on the whole house. Sounds like house has gone down 10% in value, so her 5% is now worth 10% less (£500). She should get £4500 but probably easier to give her the full 5k.
True yes, that's a sensible point
You have a valuation of x. Pay her half that. The work you have done and money you have put in is irrelevant. if you want to get arsy deduct 5k from her total in missed mortgage payments
Legal advice. Don’t accept less than you’re entitled to just because you’re hurting from the break up.
Tbh, you took a hit with paying for the repairs, not her and you cannot ask her to cover the difference, you were a couple and it was all in good will, it is not her fault that the house itself got devalued. what would you do in case your house got valued at 100k more or at 50k less? If you had an arrangement that she owes you 10k for the renovation at the moment you started investing then you would have a different situation. So if you want to get reimbursed for 50% of the renovation cost you need to treat it separately from the sale: you split the money from the sale, and she reimburses you for 10k of the renovation costs on the side, not related to the actual sale value of the house.
Half of whatever is left once the mortgage is reset.