Joint mortgage

Hi, it’s a complex one so I’ll break it down as easily as I can.

My husband jointly owns the family home with his ex, they were unmarried.
She put in £30k originally and they have a legal doc covering this (it will be reaped to her on sale of property)
House now has a lot of equity in it - around £65k
Husband paid the monthly mortgage in lieu of child maintanence as it was more money and he was happy to ensure the kids stayed in the family home and were looked after. Difference of around £200 extra a month, he has paid the mortgage directly himself with this agreement in place for nearly 5 years now.
Mortgage only has 1.5 years left and his ex suddenly decided she wanted to take the mortgage over, we have not agreed to this as the figure offered to buy him out was £30k less than he would have been owed.
Now she wants to sell, which we are in agreeable with and starting to get valuations etc.

Now we have received a claim for child maintenance and she has claimed he never sees the children (like ever) and that he has no other children. Both untrue and obviously we have plenty of evidence to prove this we will separately dispute this claim.

My questions falls around the mortgage payments, they are both jointly responsible for but clearly we can’t afford to pay out £450 a month child maintenance (which is what he should actually be due) plus £600 mortgage on a property he doesn’t reside in.

It will all be easier when they sell, but that may take months.

I am on maternity leave so can’t contribute to helping with our mortgage or his other one. So we are screwed financially if we have to upkeep 2 mortgages, maternity leave and maintenance while this gets sorted out.

My question is, can we stop paying the mortgage for the other property in any legal way? I’m at a loss as to what to do. Clearly we want to make sure it’s fair across the board and at the moment it doesn’t seem so.

Thanks for any guidance.

Usual rule of thumb is whoever lives there pays the mortgage.

Your husband wouldn't be contributing towards it but the counter argument is his ex isn't paying him rent for his share of the property which she has sole use of.

Was the arrangement that he paid it in lieu of child maintenance formalised in any way?

From what you have described if there is £65k equity then your husbands share upon sale would be somewhere between £15k and £17.5k depending on costs of selling and whether his ex is due growth on her £30k initial deposit. What has he been offered and why were you expecting £30k more than that?

Hi, thanks for replying.

So no, they didn’t formalise the arrangement in a legal maintanence document and her claim for maintanence is only starting from this month. As far as I am aware she is not claiming for back payments. She has claimed he doesn’t have any more children which clearly is a lie, and I am sure is easily rectified with a birth certificate.

Maintenance should be £450 a month and the mortgage is £600 so my husband was happy to pay the higher amount to keep the kids in the family home. It was agreed over text message and has been like that for nearly 5 years.

So the mortgage is for 95k and the property worth approx 160k, her deduction on the sale would be £30k, but the mortgage only has 10k left to be paid off. So am I right in thinking the remainder would be split 50/50?

160k less 30k ex money due = £130k less 10k still to be paid on mortgage =£120k so approx split it would be around 60k each due?

The full mortgage has been coming out his account monthly since the split. If he would to now cancel that and ask her to pay the mortgage going forward that would cover that and he would pick up maintanence in a direct payment to her bank instead of the mortgage?

We simply can’t afford to pay two mortgages and £450 maintenance and not sure how to get this back to be fair for all parties.

I should add that the 30k owed to his ex is because she put this down as a deposit when they jointly bought the property. So obviously we are happy to pay this back to her from the sale proceeds and then the rest of the equity would be split.

Your posts are confusing as to the amount of equity in the property. Is there £65k equity or is there more?

How much is currently outstanding on the mortgage?

How much is the house currently worth?

The equity will be Sale price less mortgage outstanding and cost of sale.

This then gets split £30k to ex then 50/50 on the remainder. Don't know what the documentation says about this but she may argue that she should get interest on the £30k or that it represents x% of the house value at the time so should be repaid as the same % of the current value.

If she used to get £600 per month mortgage paid in lieu of child maintenance and going forward will get £450 child maintenance and is going to pay the mortgage herself then you're saving £150 per month.

She can't backdate a claim for CM.

No reason to be paying mortgage on a house he doesn't live in. Whoever lives there pays.

How old are children? If a £95k mortgage has nearly been repaid at £600 per month it suggests it has been in place a long time

Ah sorry I am confusing with my description.

The mortgage is almost fully repaid (1.5 years left) and only £10k outstanding to pay.

We believe the value to be in the region of £165k

The mortgage is for £94k

Her deposit was £30k and is covered by a trust deed (think that’s what’s it’s called) so on reading this I can see she has agreed to share the profits from any sale 50/50.

Children are 17/11/14

I guess my question now is prob relating to the fact that we now have to pay maintenance from this month via the CSA so we wouldn’t be able to pay both that and the mortgage for the property she lives in. If we cancel the direct debit and ask her to pick this up then there’s a risk she could refuse.

But I don’t think we have an option as we simply don’t have money to cover 2 mortgages and maintenance.

I guess we could ask the mortgage lender to take a payment holiday while we try to sell the property in the meantime?

Thanks for your help

So the mortgage WAS for £94k but no longer is.

Looks like approx £150k equity so £90k to her £60k to your husband.

From what you've said she has already indicated that she wants to take over the mortgage?

If not point out that paying the mortgage was in lieu of child maintenance so going forward she will have to cover it. Presumably she has the income to do so?