Divorce.

[barney4444]

Hoping someone may be able to throw some light on this.
My daughter got married 15 months ago and was buying a house solely in her name which was sold in order for her them both to purchase a new one. When her house was sold she had £30.000 equity from it and they then added a further £4000 each which became the deposit on their new one.
When the house is now sold it would seem unfair that any equity is divided equally as my daughter such a short time ago provided the bulk of the deposit.
Thank you in advance for any help..

[murraymints]

settlement is all up for dabate.. time in marriage and what each partner brought to the table will be a consideration..

[barney4444]

Hoping not to get involved in a long and expensive legal battle, or is that simply dreaming!!

[murraymints]

better to negotiate between themselves if possible avoid the countless expensive meetings and letters.... if they can be sensible and agree some kind of compromise to simply present to solicitors then it is relatively straightforward and not too costly...

[ummmm]

I take it she didn't get anything in writing?

[EDDIE51]

If at all possible they should come to an arrangement between the two of them. Otherwise the court will decided it for them.
If they start involving solicitors the fees will very soon wipe out any equity and cost a lot more on top. If the courts decide, the aim is that each side is restored as near as possible to the state that they would have been in if the marriage had never taken place.

[woofgang]

Assuming no children, consideration will also be given to such things as who paid utility bills, funded car(s) etcetera.

[ummmm]

Eddie - Involving solicitors didn't cost me that much. It's when you go to arbitration that it starts costing a bomb.

[EDDIE51]

Ummmm I went through the solicitors route when my daughter got divorced. They charged £50 per page to write a letter! and that was over 10 years ago. Then they told us it was £10,000 cash up front just to prepare a case!
In the end it was settled by the court and very much as we had hoped anyway. Solicitors were an expensive waste of money.

[jno]

I recently asked a similar question, bernie (the matter's still going on)

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/ChatterBank/Question1563185.html

[ummmm]

They don't need to go to court though.

My solicitor basically told me to cut my losses or lose the equity arguing about it.

My solicitor argued with his....and it cost £1,000 to sort it. This was also 10 years ago.

[EDDIE51]

^ Yes I agree, that was for an agreement between two solicitors not a court case. As I said, my daughters solicitor wanted £10,000 cash up front and non returnable to prepare a court case. We just put our case to the court without a solicitor and it worked out well.

[ladybirder]

As long as there are no children involved and they agree a settlement that reflects the contribution each has made the court should agree it. If he wants half then the trouble starts. We've just had a divorce in the family using a solicitor on a Fixed Rate of either £500 or £600, can't remember which.

[ummmm]

Lady...I bought my house in my sole name, paid the mortgage on my own for years before I put him on the mortgage. When we split he got half.

[ladybirder]

That happened to me many many moons ago Ummmm. Things are a bit different nowadays though.
Did you and he not agree a settlement then? Were children involved? Did you use a solicitor? Why do you think that happened? Did you just want out at any cost (I did).