Potential Court Proceedings??

[jaycee401]

In 2008 I won a tribunal case. My ex tried unsuccessfully to put a notice on my property to stop me from selling, it took 3 years but eventually I won. He wanted me to pay him £30k. The £30k included £15k of debts he ran up in his sole name! There was never any agreement or discussion about this. I bought him out in 2005 all legal and above board. To prevent him from stopping me selling and any court costs etc plus all the hassle I reluctantly offered him £10k which he refused. The adjudicator on his summing up did say he preferred the applicants evidence that we did agree for me to pay him monies some time after me buying him out, but the only way the applicant (him) could claim would be a simple debt, unsecured in any way. He even said that I had promised him some money from my later fathers estate which was due to come in after I bought the house, again all lies as it was this inheritance which enabled me to buy the house! I am now selling the house and the ex has got wind of this, so in June I received a solicitor letter, not the same solicitors who acted for him before, saying that ifI pay £15k within 56 days Mr X would accept this and it would prevent going to court. They are saying (on word from ex as they say they have not got any of the correspondance from the case from the other solicitors) that the finding of the adjudicator was that I agreed to pay the sum of £28k, which is rubbish. I ignored this letter and today I have received another saying if I do not respond then ex will take me to court for the full amount. And he will apply for court costs if I do not respond. His solicitor at the time after I won the case sent a letter saying that to ease my consicounce I should pay him the £28k as that would be the right thing to do. I had 28 days to pay it, that was in Oct 2008 and I never heard a thing since! Its amazing that he left it 5 years and has only reared his ugly head cos the house is on the market! So do I now reply to this letter or sit back and wait to see if he takes me to court. At least in court I can prove he did sign the letter offering to sell me the house and I have the evidence my inheritance enabled me to buy the property. What I will also bring up is the fact he committed mortgage fraud when he first bought the property as unknown to me he was already on a mortgage with negative equity in another part of the country! When I found this out after we had been living in the house for over a year I made him sell the other property dam quick and even gave him the £3k in which he was in negative equity with!!

[woofgang]

sorry you lost me about a third of the way through. If you can state you r problem briefly, in bullet points with your question(s) at the end, its helpful and you'll get more chance of getting an answer....

[Canary42]

I would be inclined to sit back and wait, or consult a solicitor.

[Hypognosis]

Is this some kind of fallout from a past divorce settlement?

The way you've written it, you make it sound like he's attempting to use threatening solicitors letters to extort a large sum of money for no readily apparent reason.

[jaycee401]

Your right there Hypo! Yes if it makes easier reading I will document it, with bullet points cheers

[jaycee401]

1999 ex bought property in his sole name for us to live in (mortgaged). In his name only as I was already named on a mortgage with ex husband.
A year later I discovered he was on another mortgage and never declared this! This was in negative equity and I gave him £3k to enable him to sell it!
During the time we lived in the property together I paid for new windows, kitchen and complete decoration including plastering.
2005 we split, he gave me a letter (requested from my lender) to say he was selling me property for £x which was the value of his outstanding mortgage.
When the sale completed his mortgage redemption amount was £4k less than we thought so my solicitor sent him a cheque for it.
A year later he decided he wanted some money from me and tried to put a unilateral notice on the property through the adjudicator at the land reg. It took 3 years for this to be heard as his solicitor was wasting time where possible. Eventually it was deemed that he had not been successful, the adjudicator said that the only way he could now pursue was for an unsecured debt.
At the time I bought the house from him it was valued at £135k. So he decided a year later he wanted £31k, broken down as a %age of the difference between val and purchase price plus £13k for half of his debts!
5 years later I now receive a letter from an entirely different solicitors office and now he would accept £15k if not he will take me to court for the full amount plus costs.
He is saying that I promised him that 3 months after completion as I would be inheriting some money I said I would pay him £31k! Impossible as I had this inheritance in place to purchase the property!
He also stated that the letter offering the sale of the property for £x was put together and signed by ME!!! Well I am sure a handwriting expert can clarify this was not the case. I wanted this doing for the tribunal case but my solicitor at the time said it was up to him to prove it not me.
He has no evidence whatsoever to claim from me. To be honest I do not have a clue how one starts a court case, would he have to have evidence in hand before applying or can he apply with no evidence??

[tonywiltshire]

There is a great deal of bull and bluster in the law with demands often made which have no legal basis and will come to nothing.

[jaycee401]

If he did take it to court though, would it go against me that I did not reply to the solicitor letters. I am loathe at present to instruct a solicitor as it cost me over £10k at the tribunal, including a barrister fee and we both paid our own costs.

[bednobs]

your second account is a bit more confusing (to me) than the first!
i don't really know how to help, but i will say that in my job we regularly have solicitor's letters sent to us, which all sound full of long winded, legaleese and in fact sound quite scary, but they never turn out to be

[jaycee401]

Lol, cheers Bednobs. I think I will just sit and wait and see what happens.

[murraymints]

He's chancing his luck..trying to bully and intimidate you without any basis..shred the letters and forget him !

[jaycee401]

cheers murraymints

[tonywiltshire]

bednobs is quite correct j 401, sit back and see what happens, there are times when the most difficult thing to do is to take no action.

[jaycee401]

Thanks tony

[jaycee401]

I know I rambled on before, but I have had enough of this guy. He has made my life hell for many years. I have police records on him from when I lived with him and after we split. I have been hit and spat at by him. He has sent 3 anonymous letters to my now husband, 2 of them saying I am a *** and many other obscenities. One of these letters we received the day before the tribunal hearing. Even the police could tell they were from the same person (same spelling mistakes in every letter) and accepted that they were from him. I also had to change my landline and mobile number as he was sending texts anonymously, making it out my husband was having an affair, he was visited by the police and warned that if any more letters/phone calls came they would arrest him. The last letter was less than a year ago and I have had no more texts! I went through hell with his lies and timescale stalling at the tribunal. And now it seems its all going to start again. If it goes to court can I declare in defence this is nothing more than a pursuit of vengefulness after the breakup of a violent relationship on his part, of which the local police have on record a history of this? I even thought of making an appointment to speak to a female liaison officer as although in part he is in pursuit of money I feel harassed and threatened by his actions as god only knows what he will do if I ignore him. Whether he goes to court or not and if he did and lost!

[Hypognosis]

//he gave me a letter (requested from my lender) to say he was selling me property for £x which was the value of his outstanding mortgage.
When the sale completed his mortgage redemption amount was £4k less than we thought so my solicitor sent him a cheque for it. //

I can't help thinking that the above two events occurred out of sequence. He should have got his mortgage provider to at least create an estimate (or a quote set to a specific date) of redemtion value and only then would he have been in a position to make you an offer.

Furthermore: -
1) He buys the property for £B
2) You add value, making home improvements, to the value of £A
3) He sells to you at the agreed price of £x
4) He redeems his mortgage but that has always been based on £B
5) //my solicitor sent him a cheque for it. //

By "it", are you referring to a cheque for the 4k shortfall or a cheque for the full sale price, which you referred to as £x? I didn't understand that bit.

What I'd also like to clarify is if the home improvements were regarded (by both of you) as shared property, part of the 'marital wealth', or if you've always regarded them as 'yours'?

So, when he offers you the sale price of £x, does he think he's owning _all_ of the home improvements, _half_ of them, or none of them?

When you accepted the value of £x, were you accepting the 1999 house and still regardeing the improvements as entirely yours, 1999 plus a half-share of the improvements or the actual market value in 2008?

Hopefully, if you could demonstrate that he has already benefitted from selling you his 50% stake in the home improvements you originally paid for (but that was 'marital finances', if you see what I mean) then that ought to undermine his case somewhat.

Properly thrashed out, it should emerge how much he was inputting into the marriage, financially, during the time you were spending thousands on the house.

[murraymints]

I'd do nothing...guys a prat...a bully...a waste of space...a coward that likes to hurt woman...a Walter mitty...a taker.. a bit of a psycho....shall I go on ?

[jaycee401]

Sorry I will try and make it a bit clearer. He was desperate to get out of the relationship (long story but he was making up with an ex of his, mother of his daughter, please believe me when I say there was no malice on my part for the breakup, just relief). He knew he had an outstanding mortgage of around £80k so that's the price he agreed to sell it to me for. About 2 years prior to us splitting I had received a divorce settlement and paid for a new kitchen, plastering, new windows and general maintenance to the property. He did not contribute towards any home improvements. So when we split he just wanted to be relieved of the mortgage. He said was me who made the house a home and he wanted me to be able to live in it and enjoy it. Before completion of the property purchase my solicitor told me that the mortgage figure was less than expected and she will be sending him a cheque for the difference with an explanation. I can remember him phoning me saying how pleased he was with this unexpected windfall. Once I became the sole owner he phoned me and said how pleased he was for me! A year later once I had met someone else, the trouble started and he said he wanted money from the house. Then the lies started, the main one him disputing that he wrote the letter to my lender, he even told his solicitor who acted for him during the tribunal that he did not no what he was signing when he signed the transfer form! He said I had shoved this folded up piece of paper under his nose and asked him to sign!!! He also lied and said he hadn't even realised that the sale had gone through, and he thought the £4k cheque was a part payment as it was attached to a compliment slip and not a letter!! The sale price had nothing to do with the value of the property, it was just to redeem him off his mortgage. At the time of the split the house was worth around £160k, he bought it originally for £70.k, at todays value its worth around £135k.

[jaycee401]

ps he is wanting £31k from me, not to sure where he plucked with this figure from but what I do know is that £13k of it is my 50% towards paying off his debts in his sole name for his gambolling and drinking expenses!

[FredPuli43]

There are two kinds of divorce lawyer. One is the blustering, threatening, type and one is the firm, calm, "we suggest this as a reasonable settlement on the following grounds " type. You seem to have got the first. And some lawyers have the unfortunate habit of simply regurgitating whatever the client says to them, without thinking any more than to please the client, however absurd or foolish the demand. That does the client no good; client control should be part of the job.

It sounds as though you want to go to court anyway, so not much harm is done in not replying. I'd be inclined to ask 'without prejudice' , what reasonable settlement they think there is, but that's just me.

[jaycee401]

We were not married thankfully and all this was supposed to have been sorted at the tribunal back in 2008. Now 5 years later I receive this solicitor letter out of the blue (a completely different law firm to who represented him at the tribunal) demanding £15k in 60 days!! Otherwise court proceedings will be issued for the £31k. This is all based on the adjudicator at the land registry tribunal saying the only way forward for the claimant (him) was to pursue an unsecured debt in court. If he was so sure he had a chance why wait 5 years??