Trying to force the sale of my house with ex

Ask to have this moved to the legal discussion forum.

You would get a better answer there.

100% go to a Solicitor. You can make an application to the High Court for the judge to make an order for the sale of the family home. But to be honest it would be a fairly nuanced area of law and most likely a Solicitor would brief a Barrister to draft the pleadings and attend Court etc. So, yes, it wouldn't be cheap, but if there is approx €200k equity in the property you could try negotiate that legal fees are paid from the sale proceeds and you just pay outlay until then e.g. stamp duty on court documents etc.

Think it's called a "Well Charging Order".

The Solicitors would most likely charge by hour. Barrister the same. Complete guess and ball park figure I'd say it could be near 10k by the time you get your Order. If it's uncontested then you would be looking at a lot less, maybe 2-3k. The Mortgagee (that is the Bank) will also most likely need to be a party to the proceedings as their consent would also be needed for a sale, a judge would also be able to give an order if they withhold consent unreasonably.

Then you will need the Solicitor firm again when selling the house. Most likely they will charge 1% of the sale price plus VAT and outlay. On top of that, your ex will also be required to have a solicitor in the sale to keep the transaction an arm's length transaction and it would be known as a joint carriage of sale, that's more fees from the pot. On top of that again, there will be two sets of estate agents involved who will take fees from the pot too.

Not sure if you have ever sold a house or used joint selling agents. Though some solicitors do accept a flat fee, many charge 1-1.5% + VAT of selling price. When using joint agents, both want to be paid or they will not agree to act for the sellers.

Op, go see a solicitor, a child in the house complicates this situation in relation to selling the house. You have to consider that you effectively want to evict your child from their home.

I'm a property solicitor. Currently in-house. But when I was in practise (which was only a year ago) we would always calculate the professional fee on the sale of a property by a percentage 0.75-1% usually. So if we had a sale for sale €300k we would quote professional fee as €3,000 on the section 150 letter. Purchases are usually a flat fee alright. But even at that the section 150 letter states if the work involved goes above and beyond we can start charging by the hour. Albeit you'd have to discuss with the client before it got to that stage. Most firms I know do it in a similar way.

Just to add - they are not necessarily taking a "percentage" of the sale so to speak. They just use it as a way of calculating the appropriate fee of the sale of a property. So, if it's a high value property they'd be looking for a higher fee. Again, they won't technically take the fees from the sale proceeds either. They would need consent of the client to do that. If the client wanted all the monies sent to them and then pay the fee separately that could be done also.

So, you've already been to court? What does your solicitor say?

From personal experience, if your ex remains in the family home with your child you have very little chance of getting a court to force the sale of the house until formal education is complete. Your best bet imho is to try and persuade your ex to sell the house, perhaps by offering her a larger share of the proceeds. Otherwise she has the ability to tie you up in very expensive knots for years!

If you cannot sell right now for reasons mentioned above, what exactly stops you from living in the main house as a separated couple? Four bedrooms, two of which are not in use..... it might be awkward, but many have done it. You are paying the full mortgage too.

I am guessing that is why ex is using barring orders to keep you out though. I cannot comment on whether she has due cause to do this, but if there is no barring order in place why not move back in? Seems odd to me that there is a barring order preventing you from entering the family home, but living in a shed in the garden of the same house is ok.

She is living in dream world, time for your solicitor to remind her of the Court’s direction relating to mortgage payments.

Speak to your solicitor about only paying your portion of the mortgage and compliance with the court order, leave the mortgage go into arrears and the bank will force the sale of the house