HI lemoncake
welcome to wiki.
Sorry to hear about your recent split from your LT partner.
As you may know, co-hab couples have very few, if any rights to a finacial claim when the relationship ends. When you come to any sort of agreement between yourselves it is useful to write it down, including specifics like the amount and dates of any agreed payments, in case there is any dispute later on. If you have agreed to transfer property from one person to another you should consult a solicitor.
If you are unable to come to an agreement about financial issues you could take the matter to court, but this is likely to be a very drawn out and expensive business. You should only consider this as a last resort. You may want to consider using a
mediation service to help you arrive at a
fair settlement instead
As far as the house is concerned - On the face of it, you own the home in the shares that were specified when you bought the property. If you did not specify unequal shares, the law will treat you as owning it 50:50.
If a 50:50 split is not fair because of what you have both contributed, you can either negotiate a deal or take the issue to court. You would usually have to show that you had an agreement, whether written or simply understood, that you did not have equal shares and that you had
contributed unequally along the lines of this agreement. To get the jointly-owned house into your sole name,you wouldn need to "buy out" your partner. If there are children a court can order a transfer of the tenancy to a parent on behalf of the children under the Children Act 1989. This would typically happen to keep the children housed.
In practice this does not mean that you get a larger share of the home, but you may get the right to remain in it while it is the home for the children - until they reach 18 or leave full time education.
You can only sell the home if both owners agree to it. This often causes problems if one of you wants to stay in the house and can’t offer a fair price to buy the other’s
share. You can take the issue to court, but this is time consuming, costly, and stressful.
As for getting "more" out any settlement,then that is something only the two of you will be able to work out.
Ruby
