Joint Tennants

[slowe]

I currently own a property with my ex partner - we've been buying it for 9 years. We split up last July and he moved out straight away. We have a son who is 5 and since my partner moved out of the property he has made no payments towards the mortgage as he doesn't feel its his responsibility to do so. He pays maintenance when he is in work but more often that not he is out of work and the maintenance payments stop. I am in the process of trying to sell my house to get rid of my ex partner and I have taken a couple of free solicitor sessions but always seem to get conflicting information. One has said if he's not in work he's not earning money therefore he can't pay maintenance, another has said he should. With reference to the mortgage payments one solicitor said i should be able to claim half of the payments back once the property is sold. Another has said if he's not paying you can't do anything. Yet as its a Joint Tennants mortgage he is entitled to half the equity, surely this isn't right i know its not fair. My partner is not reasonable I've already asked him for half of the mortgage and i got told no way - although he expects half of whats left when its sold. Has anybody had any similar experiences and found a way around this?

[lady_p_gold]

Well if you are getting conflicting advice from solicitors then I do not trust my lay advice, however there are some people on here who are very well versed in such matters and you may get a reply from one of them. My take on it is this. If someone is not earning then they cannot pay maintenance and mortgage payments .. and even if he is working on and off it is going to be hard to prove how much he earns and so on and so forth and it means nothing but stress for you and your little boy. One would think that he would have some feelings of responsibility towards him at least but seemingly not so. So you must work with what you have. And at this moment you are in the property of which both of you own all of it, just as both of you are liable for the mortgage. If he doesn't pay it then they will look to you to pay it. However, you have your son to house and you will need to find a suitable home for him. Therefore I think you should find a solicitor who specialises in divorce and separation and get a proper consultation and he may well advise you not to sell the house, or if you do (and obviously you may well not be able to work with such a small child enough to cover the payments) and it is all done properly then he will not necessarily get half the equity because the Court will look at the wellbeing of your child above his needs. So my advice would be not to do anything until you get a proper legal representation and before you sell you need to draw up an agreement of what exactly you will get from the sale. And of course it goes without saying that he should of course pay maintenance and also be contributing towards the mortgage, but if he is determined to evade it , it is not easy to enforce. Good Luck.