Can my ex sell our apartment out from under me???

Little Miss!

Morning all,

I need of some advice and i'm hoping someone can help me here, not sure if i should be posting this here but i guess i'll be moved if in the incorrect forum.

Here's the story....

Myself and my ex split up about 7 months ago, we were going out with each other for about 6 years, we own an apartment together which i live in at the moment and pay a mortgage for my half. My ex owns his own house and lives there.

My problem is we aren't exactly the best of friends at the moment and he's threatening to go to his solicitor re: selling the apartment

Where do i stand with this? Can he go ahead and sell it without my permission? What can i do to stop him as this is my home and i have no-where else to live. Any advice would be great....

jon1981

can't you buy him out?

Ste.phen

He can force the place to be sold and the proceeds split, but from previous threads here it seems that's an expensive and slow process, and both of you would lose out.
(I think the relevant process is covered by the Partition Acts?)

If he wants the apartment or just to be free of it, he should really make you an offer or vice versa

seamus

That depends on what kind of tenancy agreement you guys went with.

If you're tenants in common, then theoretically he can sell his share to someone else without your agreement.

If you're joint tenants, then he can't sell without your agreement. As Igy says, he can force it through the courts, but this is rarely worth the time and money.

You may remember what you decided and if not, your solicitor should be able to tell you.

Your best option is to make an offer for his half. If you can't afford it, then you better start looking for somewhere else to live. If the roles were reversed, would think it's fair that you were paying for half a mortgage on a home that only he was living in?

IanCurtis

Igy wrote: »

He can force the place to be sold and the proceeds split

He's some hope of doing that at the moment.

Plus all the OP needs to do is make sure the place is in sh1te anytime someone comes to view it.

Little Miss!

seamus wrote: »

That depends on what kind of tenancy agreement you guys went with.

If you're tenants in common, then theoretically he can sell his share to someone else without your agreement.

If you're joint tenants, then he can't sell without your agreement. As Igy says, he can force it through the courts, but this is rarely worth the time and money.

You may remember what you decided and if not, your solicitor should be able to tell you.

Your best option is to make an offer for his half. If you can't afford it, then you better start looking for somewhere else to live. If the roles were reversed, would think it's fair that you were paying for half a mortgage on a home that only he was living in?

Thanks all so much for the advice

U see he doesn't have a mortgage out to pay for it, he bought his half outright, and i pay him over half the rent i get for the spare room every month, so it's not like i'm free-loading off him or anything.

He bought it originally as an investment and always said it was mine until i wanted to sell it. Not really in a position to buy him out at the moment but in a few years i might be, if he did try to sell it how long approx do ye think it would take? I know no-one can give an exact time-limit but any opinions or experience with this would help me

Thanks again all.

IanCurtis

I would really advise you contact a solicitor yourself soon, to put your mind at rest if nothing else.

I was in a very similar situation recently, however we had stayed on reasonably good terms.

I agreed to sell my half of the apartment for the market valuation, however all good feeling disappeared when it came to hard cash and my ex attempted to rip me off on several occasions.

Only with some good legal advice was it sorted out and I did rather well out of it, as it turned out.

There are a lot of implications involved, particularly since you've been contributing, so to see a solicitor would be my advice.

Be sure to agree fees in advance. It's not an easy time breaking up and this will just make it worse, so be very careful in what you agree to with your ex and anyone else.

Best of luck!

dats_right

Little Miss! wrote: »

Thanks all so much for the advice

U see he doesn't have a mortgage out to pay for it, he bought his half outright, and i pay him over half the rent i get for the spare room every month, so it's not like i'm free-loading off him or anything.

Don't want to sound harsh here OP, but your ex paid for half the property, which he doesn't live in (you do) and he only gets half the rent for the spare room? I would consider that to be very reasonable of your ex to go by this arrangement for so long. As quite clearly you're getting a far better deal of it, by virtue of getting the other half of the lodger's rent and only having to pay a mortgage on you half of the property. In essence he's letting you live in the apartment rent free, and to be fair, he could seek full market rent on his half of the apartment.

Op, I think your options are rather limited and I would certainly visit a solicitor. But, sadly I think they will tell you that the process to order a sale is likely to be expensive and in all likelihood your ex will be succesful; your options then are:

i) You come to some sort of arrangement with your ex, by the sound of it he is a reasonable sort,and may well accomodate some arrangement where you can remain in possession but pay him rent or somesuch.

ii) You buy him out. (You should talk to your bank/mortgage broker to establish if this is feasible or indeed if any friends or family can either go guarantor for you or indeed if they could buy him out and become co-owner with you). Similarly with i) above you may well be able to reach an agreement whereby you can buy him out in stages at intervals of maybe 2-3 years. Or perhaps he'd agree to a deferred sale on condition you pay him rent until the property market picks up and sell then or maybe if your finacial circs improve buy him out at that stage.

iii) If neither of the above are possible then you will probably have no alternative but to sell the property and walk away with your respective shares of the cash. As stated talk to your solicitor and get their expert opinion, but in reality, I'd be amazed if they told you to defend any court action he'd bring forcing a sale as this would be costly and in my opinion futile.

Jo King

seamus wrote: »

That depends on what kind of tenancy agreement you guys went with.


If you're joint tenants, then he can't sell without your agreement. As Igy says, he can force it through the courts, but this is rarely worth the time and money.

He can turn a joint tenancy into a joint tenancy in common by showing an intention to sever his interest in the joint tenancy. He can force the sale of the apartment; by way of a court application if needs be. The costs of the court case may have to be borne by you if you force him to go through with an action. The best thing to do is to sell now and each of you walk away with your respective shares.

Victor

dats_right wrote: »

Don't want to sound harsh here OP, but your ex paid for half the property, which he doesn't live in (you do) and he only gets half the rent for the spare room? I would consider that to be very reasonable of your ex to go by this arrangement for so long. As quite clearly you're getting a far better deal of it, by virtue of getting the other half of the lodger's rent and only having to pay a mortgage on you half of the property. In essence he's letting you live in the apartment rent free, and to be fair, he could seek full market rent on his half of the apartment.

I think you are exaggerating this slightly. The current situation has come about by the ex moving out. In the short term, I don't think he has a claim on half the rent on all the property, but I suppose he does in the medium term.

dats_right

Victor wrote: »

I think you are exaggerating this slightly.

How exactly? And in this context do you consider seven months short term? The ex is permitting the OP to remain in the property and thus far, very reasonably of him, hasn't demanded any rent from her in respect of his half of the property. He probably won't either provided the property is sold or he is bought out or some other arrangement is entered into. But, there is absolutely no reason why he couldn't, if he wanted to, demand rent from the OP. Let's be clear on one thing, just because he doesn't have to meet mortgage repayments doesn't mean he is not entitled to rent, afterall he owns half the property.

OP claimed not to be "free-loading off him or anything", but that is exactly what she is doing, she pays him nothing other than half the rent from the lodger. What makes her think that she is entitled to the other half given that she still remains in possession? The very least she could do would be to hand over the full amount to the ex. The words Cuckoo Land spring to mind, I apologise if that causes offence as genuinely none is intended, it's just that a dose of reality needs to be injected into this discussion.

Anyway, I'm getting side tracked from the substantive issue and ultimately the three options I have outlined in my previous post just about sum up OP's options.

seamus

dats_right wrote: »

And in this context do you consider seven months short term?

Well I would, even in this context.

very reasonably of him, hasn't demanded any rent from her in respect of his half of the property.

They own the property jointly. Regardless of what portions each owns, he's not entitled to any rent for his part of the property unless another non-owner is renting the property.

The fact that he owns his share is irrelevant and it's muddying the waters. The property is shared jointly, split down the middle. This means that all rental income is also split jointly. The amount of debt on either owner is irrelevant, as is the living situation of either owner.

You could argue that the bank owns the bulk of her share and by virtue of her paying the mortgage, then the bank is taking its fair share of the rental income.

Little Miss!

seamus wrote: »

Well I would, even in this context.

They own the property jointly. Regardless of what portions each owns, he's not entitled to any rent for his part of the property unless another non-owner is renting the property.

The fact that he owns his share is irrelevant and it's muddying the waters. The property is shared jointly, split down the middle. This means that all rental income is also split jointly. The amount of debt on either owner is irrelevant, as is the living situation of either owner.

You could argue that the bank owns the bulk of her share and by virtue of her paying the mortgage, then the bank is taking its fair share of the rental income.

Thanks Seamus & everyone for all the advice.

We've chatted about things and decided to keep the situation as it is but to look at it again in a couple of years, so i guess that's me sorted for now. All i must do now is try gather the cash to buy him out in the next year or 2!!

Again thanks to everyone for their advice (both good & bad:p)

IanCurtis

dats_right wrote: »

How exactly? And in this context do you consider seven months short term? The ex is permitting the OP to remain in the property and thus far, very reasonably of him, hasn't demanded any rent from her in respect of his half of the property. He probably won't either provided the property is sold or he is bought out or some other arrangement is entered into. But, there is absolutely no reason why he couldn't, if he wanted to, demand rent from the OP. Let's be clear on one thing, just because he doesn't have to meet mortgage repayments doesn't mean he is not entitled to rent, afterall he owns half the property.

OP claimed not to be "free-loading off him or anything", but that is exactly what she is doing, she pays him nothing other than half the rent from the lodger. What makes her think that she is entitled to the other half given that she still remains in possession? The very least she could do would be to hand over the full amount to the ex. The words Cuckoo Land spring to mind, I apologise if that causes offence as genuinely none is intended, it's just that a dose of reality needs to be injected into this discussion.

Anyway, I'm getting side tracked from the substantive issue and ultimately the three options I have outlined in my previous post just about sum up OP's options.

This is total bullsh1t. She has a claim on the property as she is living there. You should get your facts right before posting this ill-informed guff.