jointly owned property but being refused access...

Good afternoon,

I apologise in advance if I ramble on.... I''m unsure how much info you need...

I own a house with my estranged husband. I left the property in 2008 with our daughter as he was refusing to leave and as you can imagine one of us had to go.

Since then he has had a child with a now ex ...they lived at the house and he has now kicked them out and moved another girlfriend in.

We have been to mediation ..... in my opinion it was a waste of time.
We are now on our 2nd court order regarding our daughter as he was unable to adhere to the first one.

We had remarkably agreed for Estate agents to attend the house tomorrow for valuations to be carried out.

Tonight when I have collected my daughter from school she has the same socks and cardigan on as what I had sent her in yesterday (he had her over night last night) , my daughter also stated that he had failed to put a drink in her lunch bag. I called him and spoke to him about it ..... or tired.

He flew off the handle and said he was not letting me in the house tomorrow.

I have called the police and arranged for them to meet me at the address in order to prevent a breach of the peace.

I guess what I am asking is.....

am I doing the right thing??

I know if I turned up on my own he would 100% ''kick off''.

He has changed the locks on the address too


I would appreciate any advice...positive or negative. I just want to get it right.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to read ...

D

Can you please tell me - what is your objective here ? You mention mediation - in what context ? Are you in the throes of a divorce ?

LMM

Hi,

sorry I am new to it all and knew I''d miss bits out.

We are divorcing. (3rd sets of divorce papers have been sent to him)

I am 100% doing the right thing in as divorcing him (god only knows why I bought a house with him in the first place.) what I should have said was am I going about the property aspect the correct way?

I am sorry if I was unclear.

We attended mediation re financial / property and child issues..... it broke down when he felt the need to call me C word when things weren''t going his way.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post.

D

Well, that is a bit clearer, so you''re divorcing, but if the house is in joint names, then you need to agree :

(a) is the house to be sold ?
(b) which agents are to be used to handle the sale
(c) ditto with solicitors
(d) the initial asking price ; and also, probably,
(e) if, as I suspect is the case, your x2b is likely to prove unco-operative ( as I strongly suspect he will be ) then you need a very tightly drafted order, with timetables and rights to back to back to the Court for Directions if things get stuck - which from the sound of what you say is unlikely.

You have to face one unpleasant fact. Where property is owned jointly both joint owners must concur in a sale. If agreement is not forthcoming it is essential to get a Court order. Without this, he can keep holding up matters indefinitely.

LMM

Hi,
thank you for replying. I do appreciate it.

He is trying everything he can to stop any progress.

He asked what I proposed and I suggested either he buys me out or we sell and divide the profit.... I don''t think I could be any fairer.

I am sooo worried about going there with the police tomorrow but feel I have little option. All my belongings are still there...jewellery etc.

To top it off he is a police man!!! You''d like to think he''d know better and save himself the shame of it all.


Thank you again.

Chickpea, may I make a few suggestions which you may find helpful.

I decided this year to write two articles which, though they are written by a lawyer, were designed for people like yourself, without legal knowledge and which were intended to give a broad outline of some of the issues you need to confront and how to approach them.

The first is called Housing options following separation, and there is a thread with that title and I think the reference number is 317386.

The other is called " A guide to what to consider before starting divorce " or something like that, and you will find it in the Library under FAQ''s and then '' Splitting up the Finances ''.

I tried to avoid legalese in these articles, and it''s for others to judge how helpful they are.

My guess is that there is a strong possibility that a Court would order him to vacate the FMH so that your daughter can have a proper home. I suspect he has been told this and is playing for time.

LMM

I think you are doing the right thing in having the Police attend to avoid a breech of the peace as he has rights to privacy and your have rights to access a jointly held property and also rights (on both sides) not to be harrassed.


It would be very easy for him to suggest that you are harrassing him by getting access to the property for valuation purposes and very hard for you if you went and were either turned away or harrassed - or the agents harrassed who then refused to attend again.

You cannot move forward with this without a proper valuation of the house and as he is being abusive, negligent and violent then the Police are exactly the right people to attend.

Good on you for getting this right (my opinion).

People are bizarre especially the abusive, at the start of my divorce I agreed with my husband to have the house valued by the local estate agents and he told me to do it. I arranged the valuation and started having people come round to view and then he spread rumours about that I had marketed the house behind his back (he was already living across the road with his girlfriend but telling folks that he wasn''t in a relationship and was only living there out of need whilst we worked things out - FAT CHANCE I NOW KNOW).

Mine totally refused to attend mediation and regularly used the C word and the F word and just about every other nasty word in the English language.

Maybe the Police will see him in full swing - you never know you might end up back in the house at the end of all of this.