All

I will try and keep this succinct.

I remortgaged my house in December 2017. Taking additional borrowings of £43k. the reason for this was my new partner and I had just started living together in my house. He gave up his rented place. He brought no equity to the table. I had approve 65% LTV.

The reason for the additional borrowings was an extension and loft conversion. At the time of mortgage application both of us were working.

The mortgage completed on 9th Dec. one week prior my partner told me he had resigned from work and effectively had no job. my mortgage had suddenly become out of my financial reach. my payments had tripled.

He told me not to worry because he had savings which if we were frugal would be sufficient for period of time.

on completion of the mortgage I asked for a joint account to be opened. he agreed and I opened an account but didn't turn up to the bank with his ID to substantiate his ID.

so no account was opened.

the funds were sent to my account, I felt very uncomfortable letting him have 43k in cash - I had been advised by his brother and daughter that he couldn't be trusted with money. (in his previous marriage - by the end he hadn't worked for several years and had 120k worth of debt - the sale of his marital home discharged that debt).

I kept the cash in my account.

The building work was cancelled, (by him) and the next thing I know - while he isn't working he has taken a car on finance £55k to be exact and had demanded £5k from me as a deposit. which I reluctantly handed over. This wasn't the end to his demands, he also asked me for money to pay back overpaid CTC (incurred before he met me)

some 6 months later - he still isn't working, and the equity money has been slowly decreasing. I had moved the money into my bills account and let the money from the equity cover living costs and bills etc. as well as some cash. while my salary covered shopping and other such expenses.

I should point out that not only did he move in, but his 18 year old son too - who was also out of work by January.

the current position is this - he still isn't working (my partner) and at every row he tells me how much money he has spent since he met me.

he keeps demanding access to the money - which I have held off until now.

this weekend I let him see the accounts, and he was shocked to see that more than half of the equity has been spent.

he was appalled. told me that I had to transfer the balance to him (which I did - reluctantly so) said that I was out of control and that I cannot be trusted wih money.

He has not contributed one penny to his bills / shopping etc since the mortgage completed. The car he purchased is electric and he plugs it into the house! He has insisted that some of the utility bills are in his name but that they are paid from my account.

I would like to know where I stand. The equity money is from my house, and whilst he might be legally liable for it to be repaid, the reality of it is that he hasn't contributed one penny.

I am concerned that now he has that equity he will either (a) leave or (b) transfer it to me monthly to pay the biills hence looking like he is contributing to the bills - which is isn't.

I have asked for access to the money and guess what.... he said no.

any help on what my rights might be I would appreciate.

there are other things going on but I need a steer on this please.

thank you in advance

without a contract to say the money was yours and transferred for a particular purpose and repayable upon demand you are stuffed. Basically the law sees it as gifting him the money.

This relationship is going nowhere, the best thing you can do is chuck him out and write off the money becuase you arent getting it back. he is a liar and an idler amd an abuser of you and you know this but for some reason dont want to face up to it.

however, there is nothing we can do about the latter and you are stuffed on the former.

Talk to a solicitor about this asap. The longer you wait the harder it will be to take legal action. I don't know what your legal options but I wouldn't assume nothing can be done about it yet. You professional legal advice, you need more than we give you here. I know on a previous thread you said you can't afford a solicitor, but really in your situation you can't afford not to consult a solicitor. There's too much at stake.

Is the house still in your sole name? Or is he now a part owner?

Does anyone know if I can rollback the deeds to what they were before on the grounds of coercion?

the house is Tenants in Common with Equal shares

Does anyone know if I can rollback the deeds to what they were before on the grounds of coercion?

I know you are hoping you'll get definitive answers to that question on here, but really you are not going to. The concept of contractual agreements being invalid if one party agreed to it under duress certainly exists in English law but it is a complex area of law and it would need a legal professional to advise whether it applied to your circumstances. The most you might get here is a 'maybe, it depends' answer. We aren't lawyers and we don't know in detail what happened. Sorry, but you are going to need to consult a solicitor to find out what you can do to rescue the situation, if anything. And please do it as soon as possible.

no, I'm just hoping that someone who might have some knowledge might stop off and see my posts

I have already contacted a solicitor - extra knowledge wont harm

please don't think bad of me - I'm just trying to get some help in advance that's all

please don't think bad of me

I don't! I'm just trying to be realistic about what you need to do. I hope the solicitor can help. Do let us know how you get on.

However, do keep connecting and communicating with us. I think it is important that you open out to people – even if it is on a remote forum like this. In some ways the anonymity of it all might help you to find greater courage to open up and to understand the way forward for the better

you will need a court order to remove his name from the deeds and that is no certainty. expect this to cost you dearly

Do you have legal cover with your home insurance ? lots of policies have it included these days - if you have you can get advice from a solicitor and your insurers pay for it - might save you a bit of money

Do you have legal cover with your home insurance ? lots of policies have it included these days - if you have you can get advice from a solicitor and your insurers pay for it - might save you a bit of money

I hadn't realised that my home insurance would cover those type of costs?

UPDATE

So, I have spoken to a solicitor, and this is the update:

In order to take legal advice I need the papers from the equity transfer. STOP... I need his permission to get those (as we were joint clients - even though the house was mine!!), apparently he should have had his own solicitor, but my solicitor acted jointly - they are claimng there was no conflict of interest, EVEN though he brought no equity to the table.

So, as its unlikely that I will get his permission to pass on the conveyancing papers to another solicitor I am stuck.

I am in a position of limbo. My solicitor has told me that REGARDLESS of the current financial position, I signed the TR1, I knew he brought no equity. 50% of the equity is his.

The best I can hope for is negligence from the conveyancing solicitor as they did not provide any advice to me regarding protecting my equity.

I need to give some serious thought as to whether a negligence claim is worth perusing.

I'm afraid that seeing a solicitor in negligence is extremely difficult. You have very limited means and I think you are already stressed enough about this all and unfortunately I would suggest that you let it go.

I find it extraordinary that you can't get the papers. Where are they?

Is he still in the house?

YOU instructed the solicitor, not boyfriend. He just turned up and signed the papers to accept a free house.

No negligence, they just did what you wanted. People transfer properties to spouses/children/partners all of the time. Not for them to question the motives of the person getting the beneficial interest.

What is it you actually want? knowing the answer to your question about the house title doesnt help you any of you feel trapped in a controlling relationship. It is not the property transfer that is the reral problem is it or you wouldnt have explained the rest.

UPDATE

 

 

So, I have spoken to a solicitor, and this is the update:

 

 

In order to take legal advice I need the papers from the equity transfer. STOP... I need his permission to get those (as we were joint clients - even though the house was mine!!), apparently he should have had his own solicitor, but my solicitor acted jointly - they are claimng there was no conflict of interest, EVEN though he brought no equity to the table.

 

 

So, as its unlikely that I will get his permission to pass on the conveyancing papers to another solicitor I am stuck.

 

 

I am in a position of limbo. My solicitor has told me that REGARDLESS of the current financial position, I signed the TR1, I knew he brought no equity. 50% of the equity is his.

 

 

The best I can hope for is negligence from the conveyancing solicitor as they did not provide any advice to me regarding protecting my equity.

 

 

I need to give some serious thought as to whether a negligence claim is worth perusing.

I'm afraid that seeing a solicitor in negligence is extremely difficult. You have very limited means and I think you are already stressed enough about this all and unfortunately I would suggest that you let it go.

 

I find it extraordinary that you can't get the papers. Where are they?

 

Is he still in the house?

the advising solicitor has advised me that in situations such as this where the receiving party brings no equity there would normally be a note of advice to the current owner setting out the 'risks' if you like. Apparently a kind of tick box exercise.

Anyway, the papers for the house are with the conveyancing solicitor, they wont release them to me without his permission or the permission of my lender for fear that I might pass the on. that makes me wonder if indeed they are concerned that they did not act in my best interests.

YOU instructed the solicitor, not boyfriend. He just turned up and signed the papers to accept a free house.

No negligence, they just did what you wanted. People transfer properties to spouses/children/partners all of the time. Not for them to question the motives of the person getting the beneficial interest.

 

What is it you actually want? knowing the answer to your question about the house title doesnt help you any of you feel trapped in a controlling relationship. It is not the property transfer that is the reral problem is it or you wouldnt have explained the rest.

thank you for your comment. However, there is more to this than what you might think.

What I am actually wanting is to ascertain what my financial position is with regards to my house and equity.

the property transfer is part of the problem. As I said, thank you for your reply, but maybe suggest reading the posts again to get a real understanding of my situation

Maybe it would be a good idea to begin a complaint to the legal ombudsman http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/

This would be free of charge.

Have a look at the link I have posted and find out the steps. I expect the you have to begin a complaint with the solicitors office first of all and then if everything follows the usual pattern, they provide you with a final response and then you go to the ombudsman.

If there are the clear duties to give you warnings in the way that you have suggested, and if they fail to do this then you may well have a legitimate ground for complaint

Clear warnings? They were given on the original thread last year. I fully understand you are in a terrible postion, but to now try and blame a service for the exact situation that you were warned about is wrong.

You can keep going until you find the response you want, but you need to go and find professional help today. You have been provided with some excellent signposts. Please just involve some outside agency before you have nothing, your situation is far outside the scope of this forum.

Your last advice was from someone who just today stated that it was a criminal offence not to have your house insured. PLEASE GET PROPER HELP TODAY. You will end up with nothing if you don't and continue to go down the suggested avenue.

thank you for your comment. However, there is more to this than what you might think.

 

 

What I am actually wanting is to ascertain what my financial position is with regards to my house and equity.

 

 

the property transfer is part of the problem. As I said, thank you for your reply, but maybe suggest reading the posts again to get a real understanding of my situation

Actually, EB has a fair point.

Whilst you are still being controlled and vulnerable to further abuse from your abuser, it doesn’t matter what the situation with the house is, as it only matters what the situation is once you aren’t vulnerable to further abuse! (As you might, again, worsen your situation whilst you are under his control, like you did when you took out the re-mortgage against the advice here, and like you later did when you transferred the money to his account [and posted for advice, but only shortly after the transfer!])

As for not getting details from your conveyancer: who actually instructed them? Who paid their fee?.

See, sound logical advice. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it must be but please go get some help. Is there no one you can reach out to?

in finance they have a term called stop loss.

this is the point where a person bails out of a deal ( or sells shares) to avoid futher losses despite the fact they have invested a lot into the company and are makng a loss at the exit point.

you are half a house and several thousands in cash down,

how much more are you willing to accept to go down the drain befoe you say enough is enough?

You are not going to get a bean by suing the solicitors or anyone else

so look at what you want from the relationship you are in that has caused you the problems and will continue to do so by the looks of things.

walking now and having a small amount of capital that allows you to start again is better than staying put, losing the lot and then being forced to start all over again.

Forget about trying to pin things down on the solicitor etc, if you were not of sound mind the you have a case but otherwise it is throwing good money after bad and will never address the problems you face.

So what do you want?

you are clealry unhappy in this rerlationship so address that whatever the financial cost (other than handing the lot over).

If you want to spend money on a lawyer get one that deals with matrimonial matters and get a restraining order and boot your partner out and then get a forced sale if he doesnt agree.

The answer to your financial position regarding the house has been made clear, you own half of it and have the full mortgage responsibility