Estoppel - house dispute

[Best Guess]

My current girlfriend is being taken to court by her ex who is claiming that during their time together she said "what is mine is yours", she didn't, but he is claiming that during their 10 years together this stopped him from buying a property of his own. They were not married and his only contribution to the house was an average �117 toward household bills, the house was in her name and she paid for all improvements to the house. He did provide a bit of manpower in laying a patio but apart from that nothing. Does anyone have any experience either personally or second hand of such cases and a view on the likelyhood of his being successful? From a laymans point of view his case looks week......but.....

[Ethel]

I assume your girlfriend has a good solicitor - after ten years of treating a property as his own, as if he believed he would live there permanently as part of couple - he does have a case to claim a beneficial interest in the house.

Extremely difficult to prove, however, but the fact they shared the house for 10 years is on his side.

What was he doing with his money? Was he earning a similar amount to your girlfriend during their relationship? Did he contribute in other ways which helped your girlfriend to pay the mortgage and household bills?

Or was he living like a single man, spending his money of himself?

The best advice you can give your girlfriend is tell her to listen to her solicitor.

[Best Guess]

He was living the single life. Had 4 different new cars, currently has a BMW Z4, designer clothes, expensive holidays, �1,000 mountain bike. She earn't more than him to begin with but by the end of the relationship it was very similar. His only contribution was the �117 average, which covered half the household bills. He made no contribution to the �340 monthly mortage, nor was it expected.

I think most of us were under the impression if it is your name on the deeds nobody else can claim a share. I'll post details of how she gets on as a potential warning to anyone in the same situation.

It does seem grossly unfair, that she stands to lose a substantial sum on top of the cost of legal advise. Hopefully his lies will trip him up when it goes to court next week!

[jaycee401]

Sorry to hear about your girlfriends dilema, make sure she gets a good lawyer, i am having the same problem with an ex partner who is trying to claim an interest on my property (he actually transfered property to me then decided a year later he wanted some more money), but he decided to go through the land registry, by the time it gets to a hearing later this year, I would have been fighting him for 2 years. I never realised that I could of taken him to court I presumed we had to go through the land reg. Hopfeully court will be a much quicker painless process for your girlfriend, though Im not sure on cost. My ex's case looks and is very week too but you never know with these things and the british 'justice' system. Fingers crossed let us now how you get on.

[themas]

Lets put it this way. If he was still living there & he went bankrupt, it is highly unlikely that the Official Receiver would consider him to have a beneficial interest in the house. This is because it has never been in his name & he has never contributed to the mortgage. All he has done is to pay something towards household costs (which I assume means food, council tax, heating etc.) He has not even been paying any rent. All of these are things he would have had to pay if he had been living on his own, so there is no reason to suppose they have resulted in him building up a beneficial interest. The only possible argument is that she might owe him a bit of money for his labour laying the patio. I'm assuming his "what's mine is yours" is just a try on & cannot be substantiated.

However, different elements of the law can look at things differently. She needs a solicitor's advice & it would be best if she could settle with him (for a very modest sum) without the expense of going to Court.

[Ethel]

She would be in a better position if he had been paying rent , with a proper contract - then it would be a straightforward landlord / tenant arrangement, which does not give rise to any beneficical interest no matter how much rent he was paying.

[flyciderman]

He has no claim to the property.

[Best Guess]

In hindsight she would have got things in writing or finished the relationship years earlier, but she just let things drag on because he would always cry and get hysterical everytime she suggested ending things. He didn't want his cushy lifestyle to end.

She did offer to settle by giving up outstanding monies, money owed by his father (the only other person to back up his claim!!) and even give him the money to pay the first months rent, well over �3,000 in total. But he declined, they are actually trying to claim �40,000.

Doing some background reading it seems that this estoppel term is being used more frequently where they seem to have a weak case for proving beneficial trust. However I cannot find any cases which were similar to her circumstances.

[Best Guess]

Good news everyone. The case was dismissed and my girlfriend was awarded her costs, although that doesn�t really compensate her for having the whole issue drag on for a year.
If it had been a boxing match they would have stopped it in the third round as he was unable to defend himself and taking too much punishment. If it was a football match it would have been 17-0 and at least three of those goals would have been own goals.
He was not believed on any aspect of his claim. In fact it was commented than he seemed to have a problem distinguishing fantasy from reality. Hopefully he has learnt an expensive lesson, he was claiming �40k and his costs and instead gets a bill for �17k instead. That is what I call justice.
With the Judge not believing any aspects of their argument there cannot really be any claims for an appeal so hopefully that is an end to it.