Charge on House

I have a charge on my house following my divorce.One of the conditions is that the 20% equity due to my ex husband is due when my youngest son is 18 this will happen in March 2013. I cannot afford to remortgage so I am planning to sell the house, downgrade and buy a smaller house so that he will receive his money. However, I am not in any rush. How will the process start will my ex husband have to go to a solicitor to write to me to ask for the 20% equity? If this happens do I get time to put my house up for sale? My house is now worth less than the valuation 9 years ago and appreciate that i will probably end up with less money. Does the legal system allow you time to sell and obviously I want to get the best deal I can towards my next house?

If you know that you can''t raise the moeny, then you need to put the hosue on the market as soon as the trigger point is reached. After all, you know what you owe,and when you owe it; you should not wait for your ex to have to remind you or go to solicitors.

You then have to behave reasonably in terms of selling the house.It is in your husband''s interests to get a good price for it, as he gets a %, but you need to be realistic in what you ask and in what the hosue sells for.

If you were to deliberately delay then he coud apply to the court to enforce the order (e.g. if you turned down reasonable offers for the property, or refused to drop the priice if it wasn''t selling.

I put my house up for sale in January 2013 and my youngest son was 18 on 1st March this year so I have complied with the conditions on my Consent Order. i also ensured that my ex husband was notified in January of this. Today I have received a solicitors letter asking how I was going to repay the outanding charge of a fixed amount with interest. What do I reply to the solicitor? I am keen to sell as I want to downgrade and I am also willing to drop the price within reason but I am not happy to receive a solicitor''s letter when I feel I am doing my best to comply.

If he has a fixed charge with interest, then on the face of it, that is y
our obligation and I am afraid a purchaser may well not complete unless you are in a position to remove the charge.

But so much depends on the terms of the order. It''s more usual to provide for a percentage of the sale price rather than a fixed sum.

LMM

The fixed amount was agreed on a valuation of the house at the time to finalise the divorce with Bank of England base Rate as interest. The plan is to sell the house, pay the current mortgage off pay my ex off with the agreed amount and use the rest of the equity to part buy a smaller house.I have already paid my ex 30% of the equity at the time of the divorce so there is just 20% to pay once I sell the house. Surely this wouldn''t be an issue with a purchaser as I have no other way of paying my ex off.