My view of how our 5 properties might be divide based on (legal) ownership is shattered when I learned about beneficial interest defining ownership share. I appreciate any comment as to how these properties might be shared:
(1) Year 2000
I got married in 2000 and began to lived with my wife in an employer provided accommodation.
(2) Year 2002
I bought my first apartment in 2002 using my own cash and am the 100% legal owner. We moved to live there as our home till…
(3) Year 2003
My wife buys an investment property. She pays cash and takes up £50,000 buy to let mortgage. she has her name alone on the deeds. She has been collecting rent from this property for the next 15 years and kept it all for herself. After 4 years she wanted to pay back her mortgage where I loaned her £16000, the shortfall in her finances. Many years later she paid £7000 back and still owes £9000.
(4) Year 2008
We bought 2 adjacent properties to form our new
matrimonial home in 2008 and moved to live there. We bought these with cash, my wife paying 2/3rd and I pied 1/3 of the purchase price. My wife is the sole name on the deeds of one building and the other is in the name of both of us. We lived there till we separated in 2018.
Our new matrimonial home was in need of extensive renovation. There is a written agreement (back of a fag packet kind of thing) that I will pay for all the renovation costs and when completed the deeds of both properties will be adjusted to carry our names as 50/50 owners of both buildings. At the time the renovation costs were estimated to be £80,000 this seemed a fair deal for both however the final cost came in at £170,000.
I paid out of my salary, took a second job for a while, and the rent from my apartment in (1). I expanded much effort in management and labour to save costs for several years to complete this renovation. My wife made zero contribution to this renovation nor did she contribute to any ongoing house hold costs or any other items such as fixtures or fittings. the promiss of updating the deeds was never fulfiled.
(5) Year 2014
I bought a small flat paid full in cash and it is to my sole name. It was rented and the rent was used for house hold expenses since at that time I was made redundant with no earned income.
(6) Year 20018
We separated. My wife`s declared in her
form E that the house she bought [(3)2003] was bought using money her sister had earmarked for investment in property to provide for her own regular unearned income in 2003 (coinciding with the year of my wife’s purchase). I knew nothig about this till I saw her form E. This money had come from her sister`s sale of car, house and business she owned, she claimed. Currently there are no evidence or documents regarding this except a witness statement by the sister.