Relationship breakup and*financial*separation*question**

afreshnewstart

Hi guys, I'm looking for some legal advice, my relationship of 8 years is ending and I've questions around how we financially end things. We are on really good terms, so there is no issues there.... so far.

I've been with my partner for 8 years.

We bought a house 6 years ago, in buying the house we had legal docs signed with a solicitor to say if we ever broke up we would get what we put in, specifically my deposit (which made up 100% of our deposit). It was also agreed as part of this contract that I was responsible to pay 2/3 of the mortgage and she paid 1/3. This has persisted for 6 years to this day.
So this legal work gave us both protection.

18 months ago we then got married, we are now (after a year in marriage counselling) separating.

We are now evaluating what the financial split should be. When we bought the house it was €350,000 its now worth about €450,000.
The question is.... for me to take 100% of the house and mortgage. what is involved?

Do i have to pay her for the house price difference? which in this case is €100,000 and if so do we split the difference 50/50?

Does it make a difference that we started the mortgage with a deposit which was 100% mine (€30,000) and i am responsible for 2/3 of the mortgage repayments. Does that make any difference?

I'm hoping to keep the house as i think i can assume 100% of the mortgage payments

With us being married now does that supersede our previous legal doc that guaranteed i would get my deposit back if the relationship failed?

My partner is not looking to take me to the cleaners and recognises our contributions are not 50/50 so she is only looking for what is fair.

Would really appreciate any legal advice if you can or where i can go to find this information.
(We are on good terms with each other and wishing to involve a solicitor due to having no cash).

godtabh

Spilt the difference based on what has been put in to date? Or split it 2/3rds the difference ie you buy her out for €30k

Steve

godtabh wrote: »

Spilt the difference based on what has been put in to date? Or split it 2/3rds the difference ie you buy her out for €30k

If there was no marriage then yes, this is what a judge would normally rule. Being married changes everything however. It's beyond my knowledge as to how.

Dial Hard

afreshnewstart wrote:

With us being married now does that supersede our previous legal doc that guaranteed i would get my deposit back if the relationship failed?

Yup.

First question to ask is whether or not the house is in negative equity?

afreshnewstart

So to be clear we are married and the house is probably increased value of about €100,000

glued

afreshnewstart wrote: »

So to be clear we are married and the house is probably increased value of about €100,000

My advice would be to come to a quick agreement and use the same solicitor for a divorce before she changes her mind and gets a lot more than her contributions in the family court.

godtabh

Steve wrote: »

If there was no marriage then yes, this is what a judge would normally rule. Being married changes everything however. It's beyond my knowledge as to how.

My understanding is that both parties are looking to come to a fair agreement. This sounds like a fair agreement. Clearly the OP would need to check the legal sides as well

Marcusm

glued wrote: »

My advice would be to come to a quick agreement and use the same solicitor for a divorce before she changes her mind and gets a lot more than her contributions in the family court.

It's actually irrelevant how quickly it's done; in Ireland there are no clean break settlements meaning that either former spouse may make claims on the other 20 years later as circumstances change. There have been a number of quite high profile cases on this point.

case_sensitive

Sorry for your for your troubles, first off, can't be easy whatever way it's going.
The way I understand it is that the bank owns the house until you've finished paying for it, which you likely haven't. If you're paying off mortgage for 6 years, you've probably only paid down €30-40k of the principle? So what you guys actually own is more like €140k of a possible selling price of €450k.
If you split the house 66/33, then you probably should offer her €46-47k. Which for most mortals means selling, I'd have thought.

Sala

Are you jumping the gun a bit - you need to find out firstly will the bank allow you to take over the whole mortgage (and her to come off it) and do you have the cash, or access to the cash to buy out her share? There is no point offering her a share if you can't give it to her. I'd work out your own financial position first and then negotiate not only what's fair, but also what's realistic. There's no value in you offering or her accepting say 50k, if realistically you can only pay 30k max.