She will not sell the house

Hi

My partner has been with his wife for 10 years (when he first purchased their house) but only married the last three. She now lives there with the 2 children, he still pays the mortgage and he is paying his own rent too. He wants to sell the house but she's taken out some kind of injunction to prevent him doing this.

What can we do, he's being forced to pay the mortgage as its in his name, but cover his own rent as well. She therefore is living there rent free! If we asked her to pay him rent she would point blank refuse.

She won't sign divorce papers either and have been advised not to give her anything prior to it going through the courts - is this correct?

Please help!!

You cannot force her to sell the house yet.

Only the court can so that as part of an order in relation to ancillary relief.

If she will not sign the divorce papers you can apply to the court to:
1) Get baliffs to serve the papers to her

2) If after a set period (court will be able to confirm how long) she has not responded then you can apply to the court to proceed with the divorce.

Of course there is no guarantee that at the end of the ancillary relief process you will get the outcome you desire. The court will actually be inclined to allow her to remain in the house until the kids have left home if the combined incomes make that viable.

Hi

So we have to pay for her to live there? We of course pay child maintenance, are we expected to house this woman as well? We can not afford a mortgage of her own whilst his name is on a mortgage that he is paying for a house he does not live in.

Thanks

Not necessarily - but you need to push forward to get a final resolution of the divorce and the associated financial agreement.

Thanks, by this do you mean just start the divorce proceedings?

In short - Yes.

You can get an idea of whats involved in the Divorce Guide under Court Forms.

The first step is to petition for divorce - there are some Court information leaflets there to help you.

You would normally do this through a solicitor or you can do it yourself or through a DIY divorce services company like www.divorceonline.co.uk (find a link to this site in Top Divorce Sites section).

Post edited by: wikivorce team, at: 2007/05/23 15:46

"If the combined incomes make it viable" - I was just wondering what that meant. I understood that the person remaining in the house had to be able to take on the mortgage payments fully themselves. At least, that was what my solicitor told me when we were discussing our finances. We are now divorced and the Consent Order was granted by the courts. I had to agree to sell our house and try to buy something I COULD afford on my own. Our m/h is in fact in the process of being sold. But are you saying that I could have made my ex pay something towards the mortage on the current house that would have enabled our child to stay here with me until she left school and thus not been disturbed by us having to move house in the midst of all the divorce upset? I was told if I paid all the mortage here myself, I would have to give ex HALF of the house's value when we did sell it when child left school etc. (half the value of what it is worth THEN). I suspect I was given duff advice.