Hi, 20 years ago, I bought a house with my ex wife (joint names but I paid the mortgage). After 2 years with a child we had a pretty messy divorce. She moved out, leaving debts and adding more debt to the house through the joint account without consent. In fact I had to get a loan to pay it back.
Needless to say she told me she was going to be made bankrupt and I’d loose the house and I should buy her out. However, it was during subprime and the house was in negative equity, we’d just had an extension built with even more money adding to the problem. I obviously couldn’t get a mortgage on the house because of this. In any case I was hoping we’d get back together and didn’t want to lose the house and my sons family home.
Long and short I was advised by my solicitor to agree to half the net profit upon selling.
To cut a long story short. It took ages to pay off the debts and for the house to creep back into equity. My partner and me have been paying the mortgage and for extensive repairs ever since.
Obviously the house has gone up in value. We sold it 6 years ago. Paid off the remaining debts and bought a modest new house.
My ex wife has now turned up cap in hand. I wouldn’t say we’ve made out of it but in order to pay her, we’d probably lose the house. A solicitor has basically told me not to worry. But I do. Any insights would be gratefully received.
There's a lot of questions here. Did you get a divorce? Is the modest new house in both your names and who lives there? There are some helpful guides on sorting out finances after divorce on the advicenow.org.uk website which might provide some assistance
@champagne thank you so much for taking the time to reply. The issue is sorted. I think I over reacted and went into panic mode. I do have a question however that you may know the answer to.
If a child leaves full time education but decides after a while to return, l’m assuming that I have to start paying maintenance again?
I'm not up to speed on child maintenance but I would imagine that you will have to start paying again depending on the age of the child. There is a calculator on the www.gov.uk website
