Division of assets - must I move house?

Posted by: beancounter76
27/09/09 at 7:27 pm

Hello, I hope this is in the right area of the site:

Ex-partner and I live apart. He lives in our BTL flat, my son and I live in the main home.

I'm not sure what info you need or how to present it so will list what we had at the start (2001) and what we have between us now:

Me:
House worth 70k, mortgage 33k (sold in 2005 for 131k) (I increased the mortgage by 14k to 47k to buy out previous partner)
Various Savings/Investments 5k
Car 8.5k
Son's savings 3k
Fully furnished house & garden

Him:
A 5k loan he taken out just a couple of weeks before we got together


Now:
Bungalow worth approx 265k, mortgage 185k, furnished - joint names (joint tenants - no specified share each of the property)
Flat worth approx 105k, mortgage 70k, furnished - joint names
50% stake (with my parents) in BTL house worth approx £125k, mortgage 85k - he and my mum are named on mortgage
Car 7k (mine) 1k (his)
Car loan 3k - my name, ends August 2010
Personal loan 12k - joint names (got loan to buy 10k of shares)
Shares (see above) worth 20k, cannot sell any until January 2010 - my name
10k credit cards approx - split about 50:50 between us, we don't have cards for each others acounts

In the years we lived together I contributed over 2.5 times his income to the relationship

I made him an offer, which I feel was too generous but it is an escalating domestic violence scenario and I wanted him and I to make a clean break. I offered this:

Bungalow - mine, I take on mortgage (that mortgage includes an additional loan we took out in 2008 to provide a 20k deposit on the BTL house)
Flat - his, he takes on mortgage
House - his, he can sort with my parents (my sister lives in the house)
Car loan - I continue and clear
Personal loan - I pay until the end of the term (3.5 yrs) (I realise now I can't keep the loan in joint names)
Shares - mine
Credit cards - each pay our own


I have also offered mediation but he refuses. He has made it clear that he will not agree anything unless it involves me selling up and movinng. I will do anything and everything to ensure we stay in the bungalow, not least that my son has had a really tough time and I want him to be able to stay close to school and his friends etc.

Now that my parents are aware of how bad things were/are in the relationship they are very keen for me to sever all ties (getting a lot of pressure there, understandably), also he is not looking after the flat and it is in poor repair and smelly etc, and he shouldn't be living there on the BTL mortgage, he's paying no utilities and I feel it's a timebomb. He's been offered a new BTL mortgage for the property, and he plans to increase the borrowing by 10k and I suspect he won't meet the payments.

Neither of us has any spare cash to pay for solicitors. I would prefer a more 'fair' split of the assets, but he (says he) has been told I have no right to anything in respect of the BTL house as it's in his name. He currently pays nothing to me at all for bungalow mortgage (1.1k/mth) save £105 which is 50% of the additional loan we got to buy the house. His mortgage is 130/mth.

My credit rating is poor so options for loans/additional borrowings etc are not viable. I can definitely afford to meet my obligations, however.

I haven't been able to get on to the legal side of things yet as keeping safe was the priority, so I am pretty green and would like to hear opinions and suggestions before I 'do' anything.

Thanks in advance for any help at all or any guidance as to where else I could try for some advice. BC76