Waiting to buy out an ex?

A reader from Nottingham is having trouble with her partner's ex and raising cash to buy her out.

Tony Davis, myfinances.co.uk mortgage expert from Mortgage Meadow, takes her through the problem and what it means to her finances.

Jackie from Nottingham asks:

My partner has a joint mortgage with his ex-wife. He has moved out and she took over the payments. 

They have tried to sell the property but at the moment houses are not selling. 

He pays maintenance for his daughter and lives in rented accommodation. She wants out of the house, has not paid the mortgage for three months and is demanding a settlement of £15,500.00 to sign the mortgage over to him and move out. However, he is unable to rise this amount. 

She is willing to let the house be repossessed which my partner doesn't want to happen. The most he can rise is £10,000 which she won't accept. What advice can you give him?

Tony replies:

The starting point is to understand the implications of this mortgage being in arrears.

Your partner, unless otherwise agreed with his lender, is joint and severally liable for the mortgage, which means your partner and his ex are both 100% responsible for making sure the mortgage payment is made and the others terms and conditions of the loan are maintained, as such the lender is within it rights to take recovery action against your partner as much as his ex, even though he is not living in the property.

Moreover, if the account is in arrears then this will impact on your partners credit file as much as his ex’s, so allowing the mortgage to go into arrears has wider implications than just this property being possessed.

I suggest taking the advice of the solicitor, I would have thought that part of the maintenance payment was to provide a home for his ex and his daughter, if she is not using the money to pay for the mortgage would she not be breaking the terms of the maintenance?

Could it be argued that he could make the payment directly to the lender and deduct this sum from the maintenance he pays, thus he is still giving her the same amount of money, just paying part of it directly to the mortgage company stopping the mortgage from going further into arrears and maintaining a roof over his ex and daughters head?

A solicitor would be able to advice your ex on his legal options and what the likely settlement should be and how to go about forcing his ex to sell him her share of the property.

If you have a question for Tony, go to the myfinances.co.uk Ask the Mortgage Expert section.

Or for more information or mortgage advice go to Mortgage Meadow.

Mortgage Meadow is an independent mortgage broker and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.