In a difficult place!

Hi there

I used this site several years ago for my new partner during his divorce and it was brilliant. Now I find myself in a rotten position and wondered if anyone can help?

I left my partner of 24 years, 4 years ago. This was due to the fact that he just couldn't help getting us into debt over and over again. By the way we never married but have two great kids all grown up and in their own lives now. So having not married don't know if this site can help me but I'll try anyway.

I bought a lot of money into the relationship and at the time lived just outside of London. The father of my kids was a lot younger than me and had nothing. He lived with me in my house but was desperate to get back to his home town up north so convinced me that if I sold up and moved, that the money I would get from the sale of my property could set us up for life with the idea he had planned. The prospect of what he was offering sounded very good and being a business woman myself and not easily led or fooled (so I thought) I considered it to be a good venture and we sold up.

We had decided to buy up properties to rent out and wanted to build up a good portfolio as a retirement plan but that would also bring in an income in the meantime. However, we purchased the first house but my partner ended up slipping into another completely different business and I was horrified as he knew nothing about that area and started to lose money through all the mistakes. He assured me that everything would be ok and again I believed him. We started to have a good life and I thought we were doing well. That was until I realised he hadn't paid the mortgage on our rented property and had borrowed against it for his new business. When I asked why he hadn't used the money we already had he admitted that had long gone. Stupid me letting him put my money into a joint account!! We then had the rented house re-possesed. I also found out about the massive overdraft at the bank, huge credit card debt and a charge on his parents house for another huge sum he'd borrowed. Plus he'd re-mortgaged our house too!!!

Eventually he went bankrupt and I went through 10 years of hell trying to get us back on our feet. I took out a loan to buy out his share of the house we lived in from the official receiver and put the house solely in my name.

After 10 years I really thought we were getting somewhere having worked all hours god sent to pay off the charges on both our house and his parents only to wake up one morning to find that he had been getting his credit history back by applying for lots of credit cards again and when I was just beginning to think things were good again and that we were down to just £6,000 worth of debt I suddenly find he's back up to £55,000 again!!!

I am older than him and I just couldn't bear to think of the prospect of another 10 years struggling to get rid of this debt.

My concern is this. I left him and he is still in the house because my kids were still living there, not babies but who cares I will always feel responsible for them no matter what age, I bought them into the world. I have in the past 3 years put lots of ideas to him from re-mortgaging the property to get my share to making it into two seperate properties (there's enough land) but he has just carried on with his life without a thought for me and just made me feel terribly guilty for leaving and has played the "feel sorry for me my partner left me" card!!!

I feel with the huge amount I injected into this relationship at the beginning from the sale of my property in London that I should be entitled to a higher percentage from the sale. I am still contributing over half to the house to pay off the loan he is paying a very low interest payment to cover the mortgage. The house is huge and could have commanded good rental. I have had nothing for the past 3 years and now the maintenance of the house has gone downhill he does nothing to it and of course in the current climate the value has gone down too.

I contributed greatly to paying back the charge against his parents home to keep their roof over their head. I have said to him that he will be getting his share of their house when they go and that if he wants to have half of mine then we have to split everything in half including his inheritance due to my contribution to that. He refuses to bring his parents into the equation. Therefore if I take the lion's share I wouldn't touch anything else. I just want back my initial investment then split what is left between us is this too much to ask as this is by all accounts my house.

He has never contributed to it very much in mortgage because he has always paid interest only since his bankruptcy and prior to that paid the mortgage on credit cards that were disposed of when he was made bankrupt. Therefore if he takes half that means he comes out with a whopping profit on a 0% investment and I come out with less than what I originally put in??? Somehow that doesn't seem very fair and I know the divorce laws can seem a bit unfair but we are not married so where do I stand in all of this?

I've babbled on and not sure this has got to my true point and I dont even know if anyone can help because I know divorce is different to common law but anyway is there anybody out there that may have a suggestion??????

When a couple cohabit contract law or complicated trust law in relation to property has to be relied upon. Who contributed what to the relationship doesn't come into it, what matters is the parties' interests in the property. Where property is held in joint names, the law assumes that it is held equally, ie, 50:50, unless there is evidence of an agreement either verbally or in writing that the shares are in some different proportion. Someone may claim a share in a property which is registered in the sole name of the other partner if they can establish a resulting trust (when one party has made a direct financial contribution to the purchase of the property in the other's name) or a constructive trust.

A constructive trust can come about where there is an express agreement, arrangement or understanding between the parties or when there is no express agreement etc the court may in some cases regard the matter as if there had been one. If someone not named in the deeds of the property contributed directly to mortgage payments, or paid for substantial improvements the court may infer that this must have been because there was a common intention to share the property. People do not usually pay other people’s mortgages for nothing. Less important contributions, like contributing to household expenses, are no indication there was common intention to share the property.

As you see this is a complex area of law and very expensive to take to court so you would be well advised to consult a lawyer to find out where you stand and negotiate an agreement.