Costs of going to court over mortgage?

Fionne

My sister's ex left the country around 7 years ago, leaving her with the mortgage. He refused to sign any forms in relation to it ever since. Now, the bank have appointed her a solicitor who is insisting on her getting an address for him and getting the forms signed. Even if she could get an address (his family are not willing to help either), he's unlikely to sign based on past examples.

The solicitor told her the other choice is to take it to court to have him removed in his absence. But it would cost a lot - he didn't specify how much though. Does anyone have any idea what it would cost?

It seems so unfair that someone can up and leave without any consequences and because he refuses to co-operate, the person left behind has no options. Yes, she could sell the house but then she would have nowhere to live and doesn't want to lose her home.

Peregrinus

Hold on, hold on. If this guy is a party to the mortgage, isn't he also a co-owner of the house? In which case (a) no, your sister can't sell the house; she doesn't own it. And (b) by paying the mortgage she is paying to increase the value of his equity in the house. She is literally transferring her wealth to him over time.

She urgently needs to sort this out, and the bank is doing her a favour by pressing her to move on it. Yes, it will cost money. But it will cost her a lot more if it's not attended to.

Lawyer, now. Not the lawyers acting for the bank; they have a conflict. Your sister needs her own lawyer.

Fionne

She does have her own solicitor, I used the wrong word when I said the bank appointed one, it was actually that they recommended one but he doesn't work for the bank.

She made contact with the ex last night and he's basically refused to sign anything.

So her options are a court order to have him removed from the deeds but we have no clue what that costs. It's all very upsetting for her, she's been the one paying the mortgage all along while he goes off Scot free and still has a claim on her home? What a mess.

Your sister should ask these questions from her solicitor.

Cost, timeframes, options are all things they can explain.

This is a situation where only a professional working on her behalf should be paid any heed. Nobody else has a horse in this race.

Peregrinus

What JZ says. The costs of litigating this may be signficant, but they are almost certainly less than the costs of not litigating this, while continuing to pay the mortgage.

Really, this should be wrapped up as part of the overall settlement of the financial aspects of their relationship breakdown, but obviously that happened may years ago, and either there never were any other financial aspects or they were resolved without paying any attention to the question of the ownership of the house and the liablity for the mortgage.

Fionne

There weren't married, had no children and the mortgage was really the only thing they needed to sort out. As I said, he's not co-operated from day one and being out of the country, not even the banks could pursue him.

She went to a solicitor right at the beginning but the bank wouldn't allow his name to be taken off the mortgage, it's only in recent months they've agreed to that. She has been engaging with the bank the whole time and working with them but it's all an uphill battle.

Thanks for the replies.

Peregrinus

OK, what you've got here is basically a dispute between co-owners of property, who aren't engaging with one another over questions regarding the property that need to be addressed.

The most common solution to this impasse is that a court orders that the property be sold, the mortgage discharged and the residual proceeds (if any) divided between the co-owners. This may not suit your sister; she may want to be reimbursed for the other owner's share of the mortgage payments which she paid on his behalf as part of the divvy-up of the sale proceeds, or she may not want the property sold at all, given that she lives in it. Of course, the fact that she has been paying his share of the mortgage needs to be set off agains the fact that she has been living rent-free in a property which he half-owns. So there's unfortunately plenty of room for arguing about what the proper divvy-up of any sale proceeds should be. If she should be reimbursed for the extra mortgage payments, shoudl he be reimbursed for the loss of rent, etc etc?

If your sister doesn't want the property sold, she might look for an order that allows her to buy out his share. But (a) this opens all the same questions about all the same questions about what's a fair amount for her to pay him, given that she has been paying his share of the mortgage, but hasn't been paying him any rent, plus (b) this solution requires your sister to come up with whatever that amount is, in order to buy him out, and I don't know how she is situated as regards that.

Matters are certainly not helped by his refusal to engage. But that may change once things get to the point of court proceedings, and he realises that a valuable asset of his, or the possibility of the payment to him of a signficant some, is at stake.