Mortgage as tenants in common - relationship breakdown

Anongirl306

I’m looking for some advice - please delete if not allowed mods, thanks

Person a contributed 80% to house deposit
Person b contributed 20% to house deposit

House deeds are 80% in person a’s name

A and b are not married

Person a has paid for all renovations that have likely increased the value of the house

Mortgage payments have been split 50-50

If person a wanted to buy out person b how would that work?

nuac

Mod
Sorry legal advice not given here, but will leave open for general discussion subject to forum rules

Peregrinus

Why did person B pay 50% of the mortgage costs on a property in which they only had a 20% interest? That's the key question.

Person A might argue that B was just being generous; making a gift, so to speak, to person A by paying part of person A's bills.

Person B would argue no, by paying a greater share of the mortgage they were acquiring a larger share in the house.

What a court would say, if it came to court, will depend on what A and B said or wrote at the time, what the documents show, etc, etc. But there are some very surprising facts which you have not bothered to mention in the OP, the odds are that the court would agree with person B. So lets assume that person A doesn't want to waste time and money losing in court and agrees that, yes, person B is entitled to a more than 20% share. What is that share?

It's a calcuation, and you haven't given enough information in the OP to make the calculation. But, making a few assumptions to show how it might be done, it looks like this:

The house was bought with a 10% deposit, person A stumping up 8% and person B 2%, hence the original 80:20 split. There was a 90% mortgage.

Over time the mortage amount has been reduced by one-third, so the outstanding amount is now 60% of the original purchase price. The 30% that has been "bought from the bank" has been bought by the equal contributions of the parties.

We ignore routine maintenance costs. Person A has paid an amount for removations/improvements that equal 5% of the original purchase price.

So, as a percentage of the original purchase price, person A has paid 8% + 15% + 5% = 28%.

And person B has paid 2% + 15%.

So, the house is sold, the mortgage is paid off and whatever is left is divided in the proportions 28:15.