splitting the equity in a joint owned house

[ali_alic]

Just a quickie, my brother in law has now split with his girlfriend. They owned a house together, he has left the house and she is going to buy him out. He is still paying his part of the mortgage. They have had the house valued and she has offered to pay him 50% of the equity. However, she has made no adjustment for the contents. is he entitled to 50% (or at least something) of the contents value. He wouldn't normally crib but he paid for the range cooker and the new suite etc only months before the split. Ta

[kazza12345]

why dosent he just go and take the cooker and sofa back? if he has the reciepts and he payed for them i would think he would be entitled to do that. I would imagine that morally he in entitled to have some sort of financial recompense, but whether this would be legal or not, who knows? - i have a feeling he would be told to have the items back rather than her give him money ... after all, if she sold the items to give him 1/2 they would be worth much much less that they were worth when he bought them, even if it was only a few weeks ago. Plus you have to take into account things like who's was the sofa they got rid of to get the new one. All in all it seems very difficult - he could always ask her, but i would imagine it would be quite expensive to follow up if she said no

[ali_alic]

Cheers for that. Its just the way he looks at it - he is entitled to half the house and half the contents, or half the value. She states he isn't - only half the house and she won't include the contents. She reckons she will take him to court over it. I have told him to leave it to the solicitors as its gettng quite nasty now. When I split up with my other half (no kids involved) I kept the house but had to include the value of its contents, which I thought was fair enough. just wondered if things had changed? In this instance kids are involved either.

[lady_p_gold]

To be honest, if she is agreeing to pay half the equity then I would grab it while he can, she could easily be far far more difficult than this and there is a good chance she could end up getting more than 50% so I would say just forget about the contents and quit while you are (nearly) ahead. If it turns nasty then it will just waste more money in solicitors fees which might come to more than the contents in the first place.

[ali_alic]

lady p gold - why would he stand a chance of less than 50%? They were going to sell it and therefore split the proceeds but she has decided that she will buy him out as opposed to him buying her out. Anyway that was nher first offer so I am assuming that she doesn't expect him to agree to it.

[kazza12345]

i thought about this a bit more overnight - if he wants the money, and dosent get satisfaction, he could insist she sells the house, and that might make her change her mind

[ali_alic]

kazza12345 - reckon you're spot on the money there.
Cheers