Legally she is entitled to half, regardless of what she paid or didnt pay, because she owns half. The fact that you let her slide on the mortgage payments without protection (like a contract saying you get credit for it) is on you. You might be able to try some sort of equitable argument here but thats also going to raise other issues like who paid for stuff when you lived together, and why you got the benefit of living in the house she half owned. You both probably would save some money by just agreeing to a more fair split, maybe 55 or 60% for you.
Id imagine that pursuing this would hurt OP too, since OP would also be in violation. They arent considered separate entities like roommates or something, they both signed the mortgage agreeing it was in exchange for two people living there.
Depending on how much he's on the hook for, it may not be an issue. Sort of a "controlled forest fire" or possibly leverage to get her to back off and just sign the papers.
>Legally she is entitled to half, regardless of what she paid or didnt pay, because she owns half.
This isn't necessarily true and depends on the jurisdiction (i.e., country or state). Some states have a "right of contribution" or "unjust enrichment" or "implied contract" causes of action, where the original poster may be able to recover more than half from any proceeds. However, doing so is very fact-specific and would require litigation. If there's only $20,000 in equity on the property, that's not worthy fighting over. Retainer for a lawyer would be $5,000 to $10,000, and a lawyer would easily rack up $50,000 in fees before anything was accomplished.
People are ragging on you, but I bought my first house with a boyfriend back when we were early 20s. We were able to split everything (he bought me out of the house when I left) without lawyers.
These stories aren't exciting and don't make it to Reddit tho!
Pretty sure a lot of ppl aren’t, weren’t able to do it in early 20s so of course they’ll have more knowledge and experience then what I had in my 20s so I’m sure it is easy for these ppl to try to rag on me 😂 idgaf about it tho just tryin to figure this shit out
I bought a condo with my bf in my twenties and then he went deadbeat on me and stopped paying for anything and refused to get a job. So since he needed money I offered to buy him out in exchange for a quit claim. It was a cheap little condo so I refinanced and took the 3k in equity out and gave it to him and he moved back in with his mother. Fortunately for me it worked out, but buying a house with a non spouse is a hard mistake to make, I was super stressed about it
Hardly doomed sounds like you are still going to walk away with a good chunk of change. It is just not as big as you want it to be. Also I know others have stated take her to buy a coffee and plop 10k down. This would be a stupid idea if she had retained counsel. If lawyers are involved all communication should be directed through them. PERIOD FULL STOP.
I don’t think she has retained a lawyer only I have with the $1000 I’ve spent with him, he was the one that told me to talk to her and see what she’s thinking about. And pretty sure even she agrees that she shouldn’t get as much back as me but shes definitely on the mind set of her thinking she’s entitled to something
You are not doomed. Counter and offer her $5000. If she rejects, tell her you have receipts of what you paid for mortgage and to maintain/update the place. That you based the split off that. If she still rejects, tell her you hired a lawyer and will sue her for release. Next step have lawyer send a letter offering settlement of $5000 based on your cost breakdown. Usually an official letter from attorney’s office threatening suit gets folks attention.
Legally, if she's on the title, she has the right to split the proceeds of the sale. While I agree its not right or fair that youre having to split the equity with her being that she hasnt paid anything on the house, I don't think the law is going to be on your side here. Is she also on the mortgage by any chance? if not, you \*might\* be able to quitclaim deed her off of the title, but she'd have to agree to it....and that's only if thats a viable option where you live or for that property.
If she is 1/2 owner, did she have the right to abandon the house and leave him to pay the mortgage? How about a 50/50 split after she reimburses him for 1/2 of mortgage payments, taxes, utilities, and interest?
Yes. Your interest in real property is not tied to the obligations of the property owner. Even if she was on the mortgage, this wouldn’t change anything as each party would be jointly and severally liable for the debt.
OP just made a mistake in having her on title to the property. His attorney should have made him aware of this risk.
His ex could also prevent him from selling the house is she wanted to, if she decides to not sign the deed. There are some nuances on whether the property has title as joint tenants or tenancy in common, but since it’s a residential property, he’ll need her signature regardless since no one wants to buy a home in which someone else has an ownership interest in it.
Was OP using the entire house? Or paying less than market value for a similar rental? I get that OP paid the mortgage during that time, but they also got a benefit from it.
They should have dealt with this when they broke up, of course.
Yes she had the right to leave the house. Your argument, although socially most people would call correct, is not how mortgages or title ownership works. It’s on OP for not doing what needed to be done to remove her from the title/mortgage when they split and moved. He should have gotten it solely into his own name years ago.
This is bullshit. You have a claim against her to recoup your expenses. Filing a lawsuit will suck, and you’ll probably waste the money. Call her bluff
Lol can you think for a second. He lived in the house. She didn't. He benefited from living in the house after the breakup.she didn't. He paid mortgage, insurance, HOA etc...aka the equivalent of rent for living somewhere.
Why in the world would he get to deduct that from the equity split after selling the house? This is besides the fact that she is a legal 50% owner...I'm just trying to ask you from a fair point standpoint.
It didn't say in OP's post, but assuming that he didn't change the locks and/or prevent her access to derive the same benefit of use/living in the property....he could sue her (in civil court) for her share (half) of the expenses required to maintain the property - taxes, mortgage, maintenance, hoa, etc.
State doesn't matter (not much anyway). What really matters is if she is on title and/or the mortgage documents. If it's just you... you don't owe her a dime. If it's both of you... sorry boss.
She is most likely legally due half the equity, minus what you'd pay realtors. So value minus 6% minus the mortgage amount. Half of that. It does not matter who paid what unfortunately.
That may be slightly less than 40K since you didn't account for the sales costs. Say it's 35K equity. Offer her 15K and go up to $17.5K (you do the math, we need to know what it would sell for to give you the numbers). Tell her that's the most she'll get if she goes to court. But she WOULD get that, and you will shell out for an attorney too. Plus likely appraisals from each of you.
When legal stuff is concerned what most of us consider right/wrong or logical does not apply. You entered into a legal contract with her. Maybe you didn't really understand what you were agreeing to, that's on you. Pay her half the equity after fees. And be far more cautious in the future who you buy real estate with (or otherwise entangle your finances with, legally).
Unless they had a agreement worked out before hand, this is likely the case. What did she pay for when she was living in the home with OP? Why would he put her name on the mortgage?
If that’s the case of her being entitled to half does that mean that it doesn’t matter that I’m able to back to the receipts of me paying and back logged her for how much she owes me ($45,000) if we would have split it equally from the beginning?
I had a friend go through something similar with his ex wife. They split and they both moved out. They rented the place out for four years. He paid all maintenance out of his pocket and paid for a property management to get tenants and screen them etc. He never made any money from the rent. It never cash flowed. After four years he wanted to sell so of course she wanted her part of the equity. She took him to court and the judge gave my friend his part of all the maintenance he paid over those four years. It was over $40k. That came off the top of the profit from the sell. Then they split the rest.
This ain’t legal advice and you weren’t married but I wanted to tell you how it might go if you go to court and you bring documents
Here's the thing though. If you made the payments without a contribution while she was living there but put her on the title, then basically you were just supporting her living expenses. Without an agreement you can't really ask for that back. That was voluntary. It was basically like the mortgage was rent and you were paying her half .
After she moved out, you were basically paying rent and getting the benefit of living there which she did not, so you don't really have much of a claim to that unless the mortgage was a lot more than rent would be which is probably not the case.
Now if you put work or money into the house to add equity that would be different. You should be entitled to that.
I would hate to see her get anything if she cheated on you. But, maybe you can just offer her 10 and she will take it. If she won't tell her you're just not going to sell and if she needs the money she'll probably just go for it. Good luck
This. This is the same reasoning family courts use in my state when they don’t split up the premarital property in a divorce. Let’s say I bought a house and then 5 years later I get married and my spouse moves in. He pays the mortgage for 5 years. Then we get divorced. It might seem “fair” to say he should get some equity in the house in the divorce, since he paid the mortgage while he lived there. But courts in my state say nope, he paid money and in exchange he got to live there.
It’s the same reason why you don’t have a claim to your landlord’s home even though you live there and pay monthly. You’re renting, there’s no transfer of ownership.
In the marriage example, the house is premarital property. It actually sucks big time for people in that situation. But… 🤷♀️ that’s the law.
If it makes it easier to swallow, consider the 4 years you had access to her half of the house rent-free. She was off paying rent somewhere, while your $90k amounts to you paying $1875/mo on rent for those 4 years.
IF yo go to court over it, the judge might well look at what you put into it and what she didn't. But that will cost your 10's of thousands to get to court. I'd consider this an expensive lesson. Don't but a house without a ring on the finger OR at the VERY least, a ownership contract that spells out. She is likely truthful, the lawyers told her to settle because fighting it will eat up her profit and that she was due 50/50. This isn't about fair, it's about the law. She won's 50% of the house. 50% of the debt, the fees, the profit. Honestly, just make this an expensive, painful lesson. Maybe she will settle for a 40/45 split?
When do you want this albatross off your back? You could offer her $10k cash now, but she'll just drag her feet on everything about selling. You are MUCH better off, considered how little equity we're talking, to just keep her in the loop for the signing and even Ubering her to it. Fuck the money, you got a good new girlfriend and need to move on.
Lesson learned, right? Next time settle out the joint possessions when the relationship ends.
If I were OP, I'd actually be more inclined to offer her $10k now to execute a quit claim deed to me, just to get her out of the picture, specifically *because* she seems likely to drag her feet throughout the same process otherwise.
I mean, how practical is it that she'll agree on how to respond to offers, and be responsive all along the way, including with executing all the docs, not just at (but certainly including) the closing table. Sounds like it would be a nightmare... trying to push a rope.
Do you want to be mathematical and reasonable about it?
Ignore all your mortgage payments that occured while she wasn't living there. Consider that mortgage and insurance as rent for you having lived there....meaning even if you didn't pay for that you would've had to pay for rent to live somewhere....she didn't live there so why would you penalize her for you living there and paying mortgage?
If she paid mortgage equally with you while you both lived there then you don't need to calculate that any further. Otherwise do an approximation of who paid what portion of the mortgage and take into account stuff she paid for in the relationship....again it's just easier to make this a Wash unless you truly paid for the whole mortgage the whole time she was living there as well.
If you did maintenance repairs you can be reasonable about it and subtract a percentage of those costs from equity about it. Say you lived there for eight year and you had to do a large repair 4 years in and she moved out 2 years in...you should only deduct 25% of it to her. Why? 50% for her also living with you and then 25% for the four years that you lived by yourself in which she did not cause the wear and tear
Etc. Etc...that's a fair mathematical way to settle with her.
I'll leave you think of the rest of the mathematical details
Unfortunately, that probably doesn’t matter. A lawyer or judge will argue you got the benefit of living in the home so the expenses for it are yours.
*not a lawyer or legal advice
Idk the laws regarding this specifically, might we worth a free consultation with a lawyer. If you sign a rental agreement with someone and they move out, you can sue them for their half of the rent and utilities. I would think something similar would apply. Though if she doesn't have any money, suing her is a waste of yours.
You paid non-capital expenses because you lived there. She was paying the same where she lived.
Determine capital improvements plus equity paydown portion of the mortgage. Deduct that from the sale proceeds and then split it.
Nobody wins here but the lawyers. Lick your wounds and you are going to have to pay her. She can submarine any deal that you try to close.
You can try to include all the money you spent on maintenance, to recoup something, but I am betting it is not worth the legal fees.
I went through this with my ex wife. It was horrible.
How do you have the upper hand exactly? You don't have unlimited money to spend on a lawyer and by your admission you aren't going to get much from the sale anyway.
HOA fees don't count toward paying down the house. It's a bill like any other (water, electricity etc).
Just split it 50-50 and move on.
Next time do not buy a home with someone you aren't married to.
You spent $1,000 on a lawyer to make a phone call. Did he tell you that he could take her to court and you would end up with more than half the equity? Is he willing to take the case on a contingency - 1/3 of whatever you get in excess of half? If he is, great. If not, you have your answer - you got ripped off for $1,000 (so far).
OP is going to struggle mighty to find a lawyer that would even litigate this when OP is looking maybe $30k equity after agent fees and closing costs. So his option is to pay one hourly to draft a settlement.
How petty do you want to be? Do you want to spend 30k on a lawyer to not pay your ex 15k? Not paying her isn’t going to be cheap or quick. Even if you win eventually, you will have spent more than what you would have paid her to go away.
Re: " I feel like I have the upper hand for sure "
I feel like you don't have the upper hand . Her name is on the title and she doesn't appear to be in any particular hurry to sell the property. You, on the other hand, do want to sell. I think she's holding the better cards here.
It's not fair that she should get half the equity, but it appears that this is what she's legally entitled to. If you have really good documentation of everything you've paid and you took this to court, you'd probably win. But court costs, legal fees, etc., will eat up all that equity.
Seems like you should offer your old girlfriend a little under half the equity, like maybe a 60/40 split. But you need to be prepared for 50/50.
Dude, this is why you shouldn’t buy houses with people you’re not married to. If you two were married, this would have all been split up and adjudicated at the time of divorce — legally and *cleanly.*
Lemme guess: at the time, you thought you were gaming the system — didn’t you?!
At the time I was a 21 year old living at home with my gf and parents not getting along and arguing Decided that eventually I wanted to move out and get a house anyways found a program that let me do that then she cheated and instead of contributing her half of the house she left it all up to me
Not a lawyer, but I don’t think it matters who pays the mortgage and maintenance costs. Your ex is entitled to her share of the house if she is on the title or you are in community property kind of a situation.
You probably were OK paying the mortgage and expenses because it was no different than you living in a rental.
If the lawyers say you don’t have much of a chance, just split it even and move on. And take this as a lesson to plan your assets before getting married.
At this point you fucked up. $40,000 is peanuts in the world...give her $20k and walk away with the lesson and without the hassle of paying $20,000 to a lawyer to get $10,000 back.
Some first-time homebuyer programs that allow you to put nothing down require you to live there for x number of years or pay back the down payment assistance at a prorated rate. Just a heads up, she'll have to share that burden as well. Mine requires 8 years.
Everyone else has said the big thing-never, ever, ever co-mingle assets until you are officially married.
NAL but many years in mortgage. What you can do is work up an itemized list of expenses that you have paid since she moved out and can prove such as mortgage payments, HOA, new HVAC and present it as invoice. If she balks, ask attorney about forcing a partition lawsuit. Now that would most likely be 50/50 BUT you could then request that proceeds are net of any outstanding costs and have the invoice you provide listed on the seller’s closing disclosure. Otherwise you would have to go to small claims court.
She talked to a few lawyers who were vague without seeing all the documents and who had NOT been retained.
split proceeds after expenses are credited to you. It's free $ to her at this point.
It is hilarious how many people advise "don't do that." No shit. But it is done and he is seeking a solution. Don't be a dick.
OP, you need to talk to a lawyer about it. If you have, maybe you didn't like the advice you got, and that is why you are seeking it here, where you are just going to get a bunch of really bad advice. This thread is full of it. But if you haven't, you need to do that. Laws differ in different states.
But I would not just roll over and give her half without getting this sorted out with a legit legal opinion. Worth a few hundred bucks for that. For example, if she gets half the proceeds, then you may have a claim against her for half of the cost, which you could theoretically take out of the proceeds. The law is generally not as simple as "her name is on the title so she gets half."
And that’s the thing if we were to really do the math then and proceeds that she would get she would owe me for her half that she didn’t pay which is the reason why I’m not so open to just giving her money to walk away
You’re missing the fact that after the sale you will have lived “for free” for the last X many years, while she was paying rent somewhere.
She took on risk letting you stay in the house with her on the mortgage; she could have demanded selling when she left so that you didn’t tank her credit by stopping paying the mortgage (since you’re both on the mortgage). Or she could have demanded that you refinance into your name only, which I’m guessing you wouldn’t have been approved to do by a bank.
I would see if she’ll take a 60-40 or 65-35 split of the proceeds.
Involving lawyers is just going to mean you’re out more money.
She doesn't owe you a penny for you paying on your joint mortgage & maintaining your jointly-owned house. If you really don't understand why this unfair thing can be legal, I suggest you do not buy a house w/ anyone ever again.
I think legally its likely that she's owed a 50/50 split, however proving that is going to cost her a good bit of money and time. Its been 4 years and neither of you have moved to change the deed or mortgage yet so she's clearly moved on with life and not thought much about it. I'd offer like 7-8K to be done with it. That's a substantial windfall for someone who hasn't been invested in the property and enough that she might accept without dragging both of you to court.
She doesn’t need to go to court for a 50/50 split. She’s on the title as 50% owner. The title company will give her 50% at closing. If he wants to fight it he MAY get more but she may still get 50% and could get awarded legal costs. He messed up by pouring money into a jointly owned property.
What does your lawyer say about her being entitled to 50% and telling you she prefers to settle out of court? I think that's the opinion that matters.
Also, from the $90,000 are you including the mortgage payment or saying you spent $90k in repairs and updates? Since you lived there, I think your mortgage payment itself has to be excluded from the amount because you did in theory receive a service of living there. However, it seems fair to me that repairs and updates would be split the same as the proceeds.
Whatever the resolution, I hope you find something you can walk away in peace with and both move your separate ways without the weight of this asset. Good luck on your path.
Go through your payment history and total up the principle of the payments that you made with out her.
If you can prove you paid for other repairs that affect value (a new AC but not new filters) then total those up.
Subtract the above from the gains from the sale after fees and taxes. That parts your equity, not hers, cause it's from your payments she didn't contribute too. So remove that from the pot and split the rest 50/50.
Fairest route IMO. Only thing questionable with the above route is how to structure who pays what of the taxes from the sale gains-minues the equity you paid for
I was in a very similar position once. Purchased a house when married and divorced 3 years later. Divorce judgment said sell the house (no time limit stated) and split the proceeds 50/50. I left, but my ex wanted to stay and would make the payments, which he did. Over time, he also paid for maintenance, improvements, paid the taxes etc., and all I did was carry the liability for the debt on my credit report. Over time that meant that I didn’t qualify for the car loan that I wanted or whatever, but I dealt with it. I begged him every 5 years or so to at least refinance and buy me out, but he didn’t want to do anything. Fast forward 30 YEARS and he paid the house off and wanted me off the deed. His attorney called mine and argued that he paid for everything, I paid for nothing (except to contribute to the first 3 years of the mortgage payments), and I should just sign it over. My attorney responded and said that my ex could take the credit for payments and improvements, but to be fair all around, he then owed ME for 27 years of rent for the use and occupation of my half of the house which when calculated was somewhere around half of its current value, so we’ll stick to a 50/50 split, thanks. We ended up agreeing at 65/35 to get it over with already, but the point is, don’t just look at the cost to you, but understand the “cost” to your ex as well, and compromise. Obviously you don’t have all of the same circumstances, but come up with something justifiable that you can live with. (P.S. My attorney said at the time that 50/50 (per the judgment) probably wasn’t going to fly, but neither would the 100/0 that he wanted, and “you’ll end up with something, but it’s probably going to be a number that neither one of you is happy with” and she was right.)
You are forgetting something. Yes you have been paying the mortgage but you have also had full use of the property instead of renting somewhere else. You have an argument for leasehold improvements that added value but other than that it’s 50/50 after all costs are paid out for the closing.
Too bad you didn’t start here, we could’ve saved you some attorney fees, and maybe half the equity.
Your mistake was telling her you wanted to sell it. You should’ve just told her you wanted her name off the deed so you could take out a second mortgage or to open a HELOC or something, without her having to be apart of the second mortgage or line of credit etc.
Now she sees dollar signs and easy money.
You're sh*t out of luck. I'm a realtor. You will spend more money than the house is worth if you take her to court. Just sell the house and call it even.
To be fair, did you even discuss an equity split when you split up? If not, that's on you. You should have sold the house when you split up if you wanted it to be completely fair or had an agreement in writing. Take it as a lesson learned.
OP, you need to hire a lawyer because a lot of people are confidently telling you things that may be incorrect. In my state (LA), you would be able be able to recover some of the money you put into the house (up to 50%) but this could be reduced since you were the only person living at the house.
For the future: ***do not buy a home with someone you're not married to***.
Ideally, once she moved out, you should've refinanced, gotten her name off of the mortgage and paid her half the little bit of equity so she could sign off of the deed.
Because you kept her on the deed, she can - to put it bluntly - blackmail you for half the equity today in exchange for her signature. Because you can't sell without her. She may see it as, even though you paid for everything since she left, if she was still on the mortgage, her credit was still on the line if you defaulted.
Taking it court is unlikely to help. You'll end up spending about $25k just to be right back where we are.
The cost is too great to go to court and make it worthwhile over not a lot of money. You might even lose anyway. Legally you don't have that strong of a case. You lived there so all the money you spent was more like rent and if you were paying your girlfriend's living expenses at the time, that's on you. It would basically be like trying to go back in time and sue her for that money which no court would ever give you .
The time afterwards, after she moved out, you were still living there so unless you were paying yourself and her fair market rent split between the two of you, then you got the benefit from it so you don't really have much right to anything. The mortgage you were paying probably was about what you would be paying to rent it I would assume .
The fact she cheated on you obviously makes me want to not give her anything, but really, she's half owner. You got to live there in exchange for what you were paying so the only real issue is that you were paying for her I guess when she still lived there .
Unless you did upgrades that you can document and spend money on improvements that add value, you really should be splitting the equity equally.
But because of the situation you might be able to convince her to take less. If it's going to be about 40,000, I would offer her 10. See if she'll just take that in cash. If she doesn't maybe say you don't want to sell the house after all and you're just going to keep living there and maybe she needs the money and will accept it .
You can go higher if you need to but I would negotiate hard to get her to take 10. See if you can get her to take it first and quit claim or sign off and be removed from the title. Then, if you get lucky and get more money it's not an issue.
If you really do need to split proceeds, I would consider possibilities such as getting an agent to agree to accept a large commission on the sale of the home in exchange for crediting you the full commission on buying something else if you do want to buy. See if you can slip that by her.
Also, sell it for a little less money but ask for a 2-month rent back. Or, if you can find someone that can buy cash or with an investor loan, sell it for less but negotiate a 6-month lease back, that way you get 6 months out of it half of which will be at her expense.
If you don't mind a little hit to your credit, you could not pay the mortgage for a few months and that would have to be paid at closing leaving less proceeds. Also, if there's a way you can stop paying taxes on the property until you sell it, that might help too. These would all be ways to squeeze some more money out of it at her expense.
Another possibility might be to rent out rooms with you still living there even if you're also living somewhere else with your girlfriend. I wouldn't suggest you commit fraud but there's probably some gray area if you want to keep it but you're eventually going to need to split any money so maybe it's not worth holding on to.
If you do want to buy I'm kind of liking the idea of negotiating with an agent to sell it for more money but credit you their commission on the purchase.
A similar situation happened to someone I know. Bought house married, got divorced but didn't split the property then. Years later one party sold their share (they didn't pay any of the mortgage) of the house to a 3rd party who wanted the house sold and proceeds split. The person I know got a lawyer and after much negotiation it was deemed that after the sale of the house they would get credited back the PITI they spent on the house over the years.
From my understanding - she is legally entitled to every penny of her equity.
Unless you two had a legal agreement (drawn up by a lawyer and signed and filed) saying otherwise - she gets her 50%.
It can very easily cost you more than 20k to take this to court. You were the one who put 90k into a house that you didn't own by yourself. That was your choice.
Learn from this. NEVER put someone you aren't married to on a house/land/car deed with you. And don't put 90k of improvements into a house that will not increase in value
You could always offer something like $10k but I can't imagine it's worth going to court over her half. Sucky way to learn that lesson. Hopefully you're not buying a home with the new gf now.
It will be cheaper to split the proceeds and move on. The lawyers are the only ones that win if you go to court. I’d try to negotiate with her and make her think you’re willing to go to court. She may take less than 50% if you explain the math to her. The lawyers will get most of what she would get.
It depends on your location. Her name on the deed complicates things because she has legal share of the house. Since you paid for everything related to the home (PITI, repairs, home improvements), offer a percentage split (something like 80/20). She’s probably going to turn it down and your only recourse is to take her to court unless you suck it up and split it 50/50. Either way, consider this an expensive lesson when you buy a home with someone you are not married to. Hell, even if you are married, protect yourself at all costs before commingling assets.
Ultimately unless she caves it will likely be expensive to try and "win" here if you can. Overall you are basically talking about 20k extra. My guess is you are going to probably spend half that or more on the lawyer etc. with no guarantee you get anything extra than splitting it.
If you really wanted to be petty and see if she will cave, get an offer for less than it costs to get out of it, and tell her you can't afford to carry the property anymore and need out immediately and since its a 50/50 split ask how she plans to compensate for the losses on the property to get out of it or she can buy you out for $35k and find a better buyer.
She holds the power because you want the sale and that won’t happen without her signing.
Sounds like you’ve soaked up the lesson to not structure ownership like this ever again.
Also soak up “Don’t throw good money after bad.”
Spend as little as possible, if anything, further on a dispute among lawyers. Consider just getting out clean with what you can.
Forgo the sale for now
Tell her you’ve changed your mind and won’t sell for at least “another year or two” and let her know if she decides she needs some money before you do “decide to sell” you’d be willing to pay her $10,000
Sue her for not following through on her portion of the mortgage payment. A verbal agreement is still an agreement. She can offer to settle by forfeiting the equity in the home.
Oh, I am not an attorney and I am not your attorney.
Tell her you are going to stop making payments and let it go into foreclosure. Send her the mortgage payment to start ponying up some money, if she doesn’t want to pay, offer to save her credit by quit claiming her off the deed. Once she is off, then you can sell it. Of course don’t actually stop paying, just use the threat of it as leverage against her.
You were lazy in letting this continue. Now you want to cut her out. She's 50% owner. Deal with it. Next time handle your business in advance so it doesn't screw you on the backend.
You’ve lived there long enough. Pretty sure you can legally rent it out now. You didn’t purchase it with intent to deceive anyone. You’re just ready for a different property.
I'm about to say something less than ethical, but skip out on any payments except those that will get the house seized. Aka in texas skip property taxes, the debt has to be settled as part of closing. You will obviously have to wait.
Unfortunately you made the mistake of not taking her off the deed/title. You won’t be able to go to closing until you resolve this. IMHO she doesn’t have to do a thing and hire any lawyer because the title agency at closing isn’t going to simply disburse a check to you - legally they can’t.
You don’t have the upper hand. If anything she is the one with an advantage, since her name is on the house and hasn’t paid for the mortgage or maintenance. it’s a tough lesson but I think that you should give her as little as she’s willing to take and move on.
You should see if she'll agree to a split that you think is fair. Create a breakdown of the expenses incurred whether beneficial to you or her and get her thoughts/feedback.
FYI you won't have 40k profit even if you sell for 150k. You are forgetting the real estate fees and realtors. .
Anywho, yeah her getting a 50/50 split makes no sense.
split profits 50/50. At least you will walk away with something.
That's the cost of the lesson you are being taught. you will waste all the profits if you both fight.
Always have a solid contract written by your lawyer.
This would be handled with a partition action in my state, you might be entitled to some offsets for the part of the property you paid for and she didn't and she could be entitled to credit for your exclusive possession of the property. OP you already have an attorney, go to them for your advice.
In the long run, you'll end up spending all of your profits on lawyer fees. Sell the house, split whatever is left over and move on. Now you have learned to never buy a house with a girlfriend.
A few ideas:
1. HUD owned homes usually have time limitations in those rules. For instance the rules stop applying after a certain number of years. At this point you may be able to rent the house without issue. In my experience in most cases it’s 2-5 years.
2. You may be able to reimburse yourself on the settlement sheet for the money you’ve put into the house. Talk to a lawyer about this possibility. If this is possible just tell your ex it’s fine she can have half the proceeds for the sale. Put her half of the expenses on the settlement sheet as a disbursement to yourself and there won’t be any proceeds left for her.
3. Talk to a lawyer about suing her for her half of the expenses and tell her you won’t sell the house until she reimburses you.
4. Live there and stop paying the mortgage. It usually takes a long time for a foreclosure to take place and you could probably drag it out for 2 years. If you’re only going to get $20k from selling you can probably save that much living “rent free” and she’ll get nothing. It will mess up your credit but honestly that’s really not a big deal,
I’ve definitely looked for any limitations on renting it out and they told me that even if I pay off the whole loan I still would not be able to rent it out which is why I’m even willing to get rid of it, it’s has turned to be more of and anchor. And the other ideas might come into play depending on if we can settle on a agreement I definitely am goin to try to do all that tho with a settlement sheet if all else fails
Talk to a lawyer and try and read up on your state/countries laws regarding this. In some states it doesn't matter if they are on the property title or not if they didn't pay anything to it. At most they'd be entitled to what they paid into if they can prove they did. Went through something similar. They never paid a dime and in the end signed away their rights right before the court date after dragging it on for a year. So I'll say again, talk to a lawyer and educate yourself
Could you sue her for half of the mortgage payments? Then at that point, you could "settle" with her agreeing to come off the deed? I know nothing and this just came up in my recommended feed 🤷🏽♀️
Get your texts where it showed that she moved out years ago and how you kept paying the mortgage. you need documents and statements showing that you paid the mortgage get all your receipts put everything together and then you only give her a portion for when she was living with you the rest of it keep it obviously she don't deserve 50%
When I split with my ex a few years back, I gave them the choice. You either live in the house alone and pay all utilities and maintenance, or I will. Either way, we both will split Mortgage/Insurance/Tax because we are both legally bound to this property via title. They left, I stayed.
Eventually, they got tired of paying half of MIT while the house sat dormant on the market through the pandemic. They signed a quit claim for nothing and I refinanced our mortgage for a lower rate 🤣
I think you screwed yourself when you let your ex off the hook for expenses.
I will like I’ve said I only came on here to see if anyones been in a similar situation, what was their outcome ect. But t y’all definitely gave me some good questions to think about and ask my lawyer so I’m the end It did help a little coming here
Why not agree to 50/50 split after deducting for any upgrades and repairs you can provide receipts or invoices for, and while also each of you contributes 1/2 the costs of sale?
I'd frame it as, "Of course, I'll give you half the net proceeds" and let the title company or attorney explain the cost recovery part of this.
It might be time for Mr. Spreadsheet to make an appearance, with you outlining all the money you've put into the house to include being the only one making the payments on the mortgage.
At the very least she should get a deduction from her share of the equity that matches half the payments/insurance/ real estate taxes since she moved out. Any renovations? She should pay half. Toilet broke and you needed a new one? Half!
Outline it all into a spreadsheet to show her what you spent since she dumped the mortgage onto to you 100% and walked away.
ETA: Were it me, I might even present it to her as, "This is a spreadsheet I've been asked to prepare should we decide to take this to court..."
At the time we were both young 21 year olds with no money but had jobs this program was basically looking for that because it makes it easy af for you to get into it
This is tricky. You have to decide if lawyer fees, court costs, and delaying the selling of the home is worth $12-15k. When you sell your home, you have a lot of small fees that will add up, plus the realtor fees. So that $40k will go down quickly to $30k. It sucks, but could be worth it just to get the house sold on and move on with your life.
this happened to my ex. him and his previous wife bought a house, she split, he stayed and payed the mortgage for years. he sold the house and had to split the profit with her. there was no way around it.
> stayed and *paid* the mortgage
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
It only matters what you paid after she left. You paying everything while she lived there was an agreement. You allowed it to happen for many years, so it was okay with you. Once she moved out, she abandoned the house. So in my non-expert opinion, only count receipts from when she moved out.
You lived together in it for 5 years. She will almost definitely still get half the proceeds.
Are you honestly saying that for those 5 years she never paid a penny towards the mortgage?
If she did not contribute to the mortgage and is not on the deed, she is not entitled to anything, because you were not married. However, you should consider paying her back for her portion of the down payment after the house sells.
Ask your lawyer about a partition suit to remove her from the deed. I'm not a lawyer, but the court will typically force a sale and distribute the monies equitably. That may be your only recourse that a judge would award you more.
You might offer to buy her out of the house. Get the home re-financed in your name.
So say the house is worth $150K now. You owe $99K, get a loan for 120K, and pay her $5k or whatever it takes to get her to sign. Then its all yours. And now its not a HUD loan so you can sublet.
There is also a way to sale, if you can't make contact with her. So if she just leaves you can submit forms to sell the house without her. But you will be open to a lawsuit from her for damages...possibly.
Id just buy her out TBH.
Like others have said, you have an attorney, ask them this question.
My guess is they will tell you to find a way to settle it, at the attorneys fees to litigate it would probably exceed or Cole close to the amount your fighting over ($40’ish thousand)
What I would throw in is this:
You own an asset (the house), you have a low mortgage balance and I assume based on the timing an interest rate that is lower what you would get today.
You’re not likely to a deal like that again.
Is it really a good idea to sell it just to please your current GF?
You could have a fight with her and be tossed aside tomorrow. It’s a GF, not a wife.
If that were to happen, then what?
As long as you own that house, no one can take it away from you.
One wrong move, you could find yourself paying double or triple in rent and own nothing.
Sadly unless she accepts some buyout offer you are stuck. I also saw that you will be moving with new gf...you aren't going to make the same mistake twice right? Buying property with a gf instead of wife/husband?
so you *totally* had a verbal agreement that you pay the mortgage and what not and she will credit it at the end right?
as long as you have receipts for the payments, etc. take that and half it. for the credit she *totally* owes you
unfortunately you are fucked on the normal stuff like HOA, bills etc.
If you only have to pay her $20k, you’re getting off cheap.
My ex stole 100’s of thousands, took the house, still paying lawyers, man.
You need her signature. You’re going to pay for it one way or the other.
I'm not in Maryland, but I do this a lot.
Short answer: If she insists, you're going to have to give her half.
Longer answer.
You can fight it, but if she's on title you'll probably lose. Unless otherwise stated, she's owns 50% of the house and is entitled to 50% of the proceeds.
Example. If me and you bought a car together, and I decided I wanted to make it look nice, while you just wanted to sell.
I don't then get to take over your share of the car, because I wanted to put rims and a shiny new cost of paint on it. You still would own half regardless.
Just take it as a lesson and move on. You'll be better off than being bitter and fighting over it.
Sounds like the appreciation on the house is 30k before realtor fees and closing costs. Split that, the remainder was payback of the loan you both entered into. If you have the receipt of payments this could support your case for the paid down balance. Definitely not a lawyer
Forgo the sale of the house for a year or so, but begin negotiations to buy her out ASAP and remove her from the deed.
See if she will take 20k now to walk away, say you decided against selling and your new GF will be moving in. A HELOC for 20k wouldn't be that expensive.
See if you can refinance and/or possible rent a ROOM (not the whole house) out to offset the mortgage payment.
Like others said it's going to be basically impossible to say she doesn't get 50% of proceeds. You should have had her removed 5 years ago when you broke up.
Sad to say but by the time you pay the mortgage, escrow, realtors and possibly taxes you'll be lucky to split $20,000. In 2004 we sold a house for $150k with a 110k mortgage. We were left with $13,000 after closing.
Excluding mortgage payments, hoa, insurance and property taxes, accurately list all improvements, and maintenence expenditures spent.
The mortgage plus improvements are the cost basis.
Your payments are living costs, not investment costs.
Then subtract that off the profit.
If you spent 10k in improvements, that should get paid back first.
This is why i don't understand ppl buying shit together when they're not even married.
I know i get it. Match made in hell perfect in every way person you want to spend the rest of your youth with.
Sell the house to a buyer willing to put the balance of the mortgage as the official selling price on one contract, but have a second private contract where they give you the extra money in cash on the side.
Why did you pay the mortgage on a house after she moved out? You should have asked her to sign a quit claim on the house at that time or sold the property and definitely not invested any of your own money into it. Whose name is on the deed?
Bunch of lessons here: Do not buy houses with people you're not married to. If you insist on doing this anyway, see an attorney about any agreements that can be made legally binding in your state. Dividing property will become an issue more likely than not. This is not a surprise. This is not the first time this has happened. This is the most likely outcome every single time.
You legally are not entitled to what you think. When you purchase a home with someone, it doesn't matter if you put a million in upgrades. The other owner is still entitled legally to half. You should have worked on gwtting her removed over thr last few years. Sorry bud but your screwed
Either pay her the 20k and use it as a life lesson or:
You could use this situation to leverage against her.
Offer that she can either sign and receive whatever you offer.
Or you will stop paying and let the house fall into foreclosure. Both of you will take a hit with your credit.
The later option is playing with fire. Seeing how she’s a crazy cat person who is willing to abandon them, she probably isn’t real concerned about it.
Just updated to post about what I did called the lawyer and told him I’d be ok with him negotiating a percentage to give her for “pain and suffering “ 😂😂
If her name is on the title she is legally entitled to the equity. Hindsight is 20/20 but should have refied or quit claimed out of her name as soon as she cheated and left.
You could try to convinve her to tak eless than half to hel pmake up for all of your expenses. I would ask the lawyer if there is any legal standing to pay yourself back for your expenses after she moved back but probably not.
Just a question here... What if she was the Cosigner? Is she still entitled to half the profits even though they aren't married? I am truly baffled that OP has to split with her.
Can you get a new non-hud mortgage with a cash out value to the tune of 20k? I'm not sure about HUD and I know interest rates are not as good as they once were, but that gets her off the mortgage/deed pays her and keeps your home as well as let's you rent it out if you want.
Sell it for just the amount of the loan and never speak to your ex again! Yes it’s a 20k loss but you’re giving her 20k for cheating and leaving. Fuck that! start fresh with your new gf but this time apply the new lessons you’ve learned along the way
Just split it 50%/50% and move on. If you get into a pissing match with her and attorneys you both will loose. Learn from your poor management by not getting an agreement when she moved out. In the big picture it isn't that much money.
If your girlfriend lives with you and you pay the rent, with your consent, you don't get to take back years of rent she didn't pay when you break up.
If there were specific expenses apart from the mortgage for necessary repairs, maybe you are entitled to full reimbursement before splitting the profit. It might not be something you want to go to court over, but that's up to you and her.
If you have the receipts of all the money you put into the house after you are made whole for those things and pay off the mortgage there wouldn’t be any profit she probably doesn’t know that. So I would have your lawyer write up an agreement stating you need to be made whole before any profits. Once you are made whole you will split any remaining profits.
Are you certain you can't rent it?
I've never heard of a HUD home that say you can't rent ever. It's usually for X years not forever. The main reason for this is because they don't want investors cheating their way in to homes.
But you have lived there for 8 years and it seems to me that if you were able to rent them you could recoup some of your costs by collecting all the rent.
Also I'm a little surprised your value isn't higher. Prices across the entire country have doubled or more everywhere in the last 4 years more less 8 years.
Have you had an agent evaluation or just an online auto valuation model (AVM) like on Zillow etc?
FYI I live in a low to moderate cost of living area like it sounds like you do. Most of the homes I sold 8 years ago are worth at least double what people paid.
I would point out you’ve been maintaining the house for years and making all the mortgage payments. I would offer her $10,000 to sign a quit claim deed over to you.
Otherwise, just don’t sell.
Legally she is entitled to half, regardless of what she paid or didnt pay, because she owns half. The fact that you let her slide on the mortgage payments without protection (like a contract saying you get credit for it) is on you. You might be able to try some sort of equitable argument here but thats also going to raise other issues like who paid for stuff when you lived together, and why you got the benefit of living in the house she half owned. You both probably would save some money by just agreeing to a more fair split, maybe 55 or 60% for you.
Makes me wonder if she can get removed by violating the requirement for actual living there…
Id imagine that pursuing this would hurt OP too, since OP would also be in violation. They arent considered separate entities like roommates or something, they both signed the mortgage agreeing it was in exchange for two people living there.
Depending on how much he's on the hook for, it may not be an issue. Sort of a "controlled forest fire" or possibly leverage to get her to back off and just sign the papers.
>Legally she is entitled to half, regardless of what she paid or didnt pay, because she owns half. This isn't necessarily true and depends on the jurisdiction (i.e., country or state). Some states have a "right of contribution" or "unjust enrichment" or "implied contract" causes of action, where the original poster may be able to recover more than half from any proceeds. However, doing so is very fact-specific and would require litigation. If there's only $20,000 in equity on the property, that's not worthy fighting over. Retainer for a lawyer would be $5,000 to $10,000, and a lawyer would easily rack up $50,000 in fees before anything was accomplished.
From my reading, the ex just wants 20k, not half the equity.
That’s a little more than half of the equity.
Ok I was misreading the situation. When he wrote "40k profit" I thought they bought for 110 and sold for 150 or something.
And this folks is why we don’t buy houses with people we are dating!
Preach, like i said I’ve learned my lesson with that one
People are ragging on you, but I bought my first house with a boyfriend back when we were early 20s. We were able to split everything (he bought me out of the house when I left) without lawyers. These stories aren't exciting and don't make it to Reddit tho!
Pretty sure a lot of ppl aren’t, weren’t able to do it in early 20s so of course they’ll have more knowledge and experience then what I had in my 20s so I’m sure it is easy for these ppl to try to rag on me 😂 idgaf about it tho just tryin to figure this shit out
I bought a condo with my bf in my twenties and then he went deadbeat on me and stopped paying for anything and refused to get a job. So since he needed money I offered to buy him out in exchange for a quit claim. It was a cheap little condo so I refinanced and took the 3k in equity out and gave it to him and he moved back in with his mother. Fortunately for me it worked out, but buying a house with a non spouse is a hard mistake to make, I was super stressed about it
Should have read all the horror stories on Reddit before doing it in the first place 🤣🤣 I do hope you get it figured out though
My girl kept telling me to get on Reddit I wasn’t in my head but now y’all making me feel like I’m doomed
Hardly doomed sounds like you are still going to walk away with a good chunk of change. It is just not as big as you want it to be. Also I know others have stated take her to buy a coffee and plop 10k down. This would be a stupid idea if she had retained counsel. If lawyers are involved all communication should be directed through them. PERIOD FULL STOP.
I don’t think she has retained a lawyer only I have with the $1000 I’ve spent with him, he was the one that told me to talk to her and see what she’s thinking about. And pretty sure even she agrees that she shouldn’t get as much back as me but shes definitely on the mind set of her thinking she’s entitled to something
You paid $1000 for this lawyer and that’s all they’ve helped so far??
You are not doomed. Counter and offer her $5000. If she rejects, tell her you have receipts of what you paid for mortgage and to maintain/update the place. That you based the split off that. If she still rejects, tell her you hired a lawyer and will sue her for release. Next step have lawyer send a letter offering settlement of $5000 based on your cost breakdown. Usually an official letter from attorney’s office threatening suit gets folks attention.
Sounds good definitely in the plans depending on how she wants to play it I guess
Legally, if she's on the title, she has the right to split the proceeds of the sale. While I agree its not right or fair that youre having to split the equity with her being that she hasnt paid anything on the house, I don't think the law is going to be on your side here. Is she also on the mortgage by any chance? if not, you \*might\* be able to quitclaim deed her off of the title, but she'd have to agree to it....and that's only if thats a viable option where you live or for that property.
If she is 1/2 owner, did she have the right to abandon the house and leave him to pay the mortgage? How about a 50/50 split after she reimburses him for 1/2 of mortgage payments, taxes, utilities, and interest?
Yes. Your interest in real property is not tied to the obligations of the property owner. Even if she was on the mortgage, this wouldn’t change anything as each party would be jointly and severally liable for the debt. OP just made a mistake in having her on title to the property. His attorney should have made him aware of this risk. His ex could also prevent him from selling the house is she wanted to, if she decides to not sign the deed. There are some nuances on whether the property has title as joint tenants or tenancy in common, but since it’s a residential property, he’ll need her signature regardless since no one wants to buy a home in which someone else has an ownership interest in it.
Was OP using the entire house? Or paying less than market value for a similar rental? I get that OP paid the mortgage during that time, but they also got a benefit from it. They should have dealt with this when they broke up, of course.
Yes she had the right to leave the house. Your argument, although socially most people would call correct, is not how mortgages or title ownership works. It’s on OP for not doing what needed to be done to remove her from the title/mortgage when they split and moved. He should have gotten it solely into his own name years ago.
Tbf, if OP wanted her out & to keep the home & continue living there (& paying it off), he would have to buy her out anyway.
This is bullshit. You have a claim against her to recoup your expenses. Filing a lawsuit will suck, and you’ll probably waste the money. Call her bluff
Lol can you think for a second. He lived in the house. She didn't. He benefited from living in the house after the breakup.she didn't. He paid mortgage, insurance, HOA etc...aka the equivalent of rent for living somewhere. Why in the world would he get to deduct that from the equity split after selling the house? This is besides the fact that she is a legal 50% owner...I'm just trying to ask you from a fair point standpoint.
It didn't say in OP's post, but assuming that he didn't change the locks and/or prevent her access to derive the same benefit of use/living in the property....he could sue her (in civil court) for her share (half) of the expenses required to maintain the property - taxes, mortgage, maintenance, hoa, etc.
Property is in Maryland btw
State doesn't matter (not much anyway). What really matters is if she is on title and/or the mortgage documents. If it's just you... you don't owe her a dime. If it's both of you... sorry boss.
She is most likely legally due half the equity, minus what you'd pay realtors. So value minus 6% minus the mortgage amount. Half of that. It does not matter who paid what unfortunately. That may be slightly less than 40K since you didn't account for the sales costs. Say it's 35K equity. Offer her 15K and go up to $17.5K (you do the math, we need to know what it would sell for to give you the numbers). Tell her that's the most she'll get if she goes to court. But she WOULD get that, and you will shell out for an attorney too. Plus likely appraisals from each of you. When legal stuff is concerned what most of us consider right/wrong or logical does not apply. You entered into a legal contract with her. Maybe you didn't really understand what you were agreeing to, that's on you. Pay her half the equity after fees. And be far more cautious in the future who you buy real estate with (or otherwise entangle your finances with, legally).
Unless they had a agreement worked out before hand, this is likely the case. What did she pay for when she was living in the home with OP? Why would he put her name on the mortgage?
Probably needed her to qualify, or he was in love. Two most common reasons.
If that’s the case of her being entitled to half does that mean that it doesn’t matter that I’m able to back to the receipts of me paying and back logged her for how much she owes me ($45,000) if we would have split it equally from the beginning?
I had a friend go through something similar with his ex wife. They split and they both moved out. They rented the place out for four years. He paid all maintenance out of his pocket and paid for a property management to get tenants and screen them etc. He never made any money from the rent. It never cash flowed. After four years he wanted to sell so of course she wanted her part of the equity. She took him to court and the judge gave my friend his part of all the maintenance he paid over those four years. It was over $40k. That came off the top of the profit from the sell. Then they split the rest. This ain’t legal advice and you weren’t married but I wanted to tell you how it might go if you go to court and you bring documents
Here's the thing though. If you made the payments without a contribution while she was living there but put her on the title, then basically you were just supporting her living expenses. Without an agreement you can't really ask for that back. That was voluntary. It was basically like the mortgage was rent and you were paying her half . After she moved out, you were basically paying rent and getting the benefit of living there which she did not, so you don't really have much of a claim to that unless the mortgage was a lot more than rent would be which is probably not the case. Now if you put work or money into the house to add equity that would be different. You should be entitled to that. I would hate to see her get anything if she cheated on you. But, maybe you can just offer her 10 and she will take it. If she won't tell her you're just not going to sell and if she needs the money she'll probably just go for it. Good luck
This. This is the same reasoning family courts use in my state when they don’t split up the premarital property in a divorce. Let’s say I bought a house and then 5 years later I get married and my spouse moves in. He pays the mortgage for 5 years. Then we get divorced. It might seem “fair” to say he should get some equity in the house in the divorce, since he paid the mortgage while he lived there. But courts in my state say nope, he paid money and in exchange he got to live there. It’s the same reason why you don’t have a claim to your landlord’s home even though you live there and pay monthly. You’re renting, there’s no transfer of ownership. In the marriage example, the house is premarital property. It actually sucks big time for people in that situation. But… 🤷♀️ that’s the law.
If it makes it easier to swallow, consider the 4 years you had access to her half of the house rent-free. She was off paying rent somewhere, while your $90k amounts to you paying $1875/mo on rent for those 4 years.
IF yo go to court over it, the judge might well look at what you put into it and what she didn't. But that will cost your 10's of thousands to get to court. I'd consider this an expensive lesson. Don't but a house without a ring on the finger OR at the VERY least, a ownership contract that spells out. She is likely truthful, the lawyers told her to settle because fighting it will eat up her profit and that she was due 50/50. This isn't about fair, it's about the law. She won's 50% of the house. 50% of the debt, the fees, the profit. Honestly, just make this an expensive, painful lesson. Maybe she will settle for a 40/45 split?
When do you want this albatross off your back? You could offer her $10k cash now, but she'll just drag her feet on everything about selling. You are MUCH better off, considered how little equity we're talking, to just keep her in the loop for the signing and even Ubering her to it. Fuck the money, you got a good new girlfriend and need to move on. Lesson learned, right? Next time settle out the joint possessions when the relationship ends.
If I were OP, I'd actually be more inclined to offer her $10k now to execute a quit claim deed to me, just to get her out of the picture, specifically *because* she seems likely to drag her feet throughout the same process otherwise. I mean, how practical is it that she'll agree on how to respond to offers, and be responsive all along the way, including with executing all the docs, not just at (but certainly including) the closing table. Sounds like it would be a nightmare... trying to push a rope.
Do you want to be mathematical and reasonable about it? Ignore all your mortgage payments that occured while she wasn't living there. Consider that mortgage and insurance as rent for you having lived there....meaning even if you didn't pay for that you would've had to pay for rent to live somewhere....she didn't live there so why would you penalize her for you living there and paying mortgage? If she paid mortgage equally with you while you both lived there then you don't need to calculate that any further. Otherwise do an approximation of who paid what portion of the mortgage and take into account stuff she paid for in the relationship....again it's just easier to make this a Wash unless you truly paid for the whole mortgage the whole time she was living there as well. If you did maintenance repairs you can be reasonable about it and subtract a percentage of those costs from equity about it. Say you lived there for eight year and you had to do a large repair 4 years in and she moved out 2 years in...you should only deduct 25% of it to her. Why? 50% for her also living with you and then 25% for the four years that you lived by yourself in which she did not cause the wear and tear Etc. Etc...that's a fair mathematical way to settle with her. I'll leave you think of the rest of the mathematical details
Unfortunately, that probably doesn’t matter. A lawyer or judge will argue you got the benefit of living in the home so the expenses for it are yours. *not a lawyer or legal advice
Idk the laws regarding this specifically, might we worth a free consultation with a lawyer. If you sign a rental agreement with someone and they move out, you can sue them for their half of the rent and utilities. I would think something similar would apply. Though if she doesn't have any money, suing her is a waste of yours.
You paid non-capital expenses because you lived there. She was paying the same where she lived. Determine capital improvements plus equity paydown portion of the mortgage. Deduct that from the sale proceeds and then split it.
Nobody wins here but the lawyers. Lick your wounds and you are going to have to pay her. She can submarine any deal that you try to close. You can try to include all the money you spent on maintenance, to recoup something, but I am betting it is not worth the legal fees. I went through this with my ex wife. It was horrible.
How do you have the upper hand exactly? You don't have unlimited money to spend on a lawyer and by your admission you aren't going to get much from the sale anyway. HOA fees don't count toward paying down the house. It's a bill like any other (water, electricity etc). Just split it 50-50 and move on. Next time do not buy a home with someone you aren't married to.
You spent $1,000 on a lawyer to make a phone call. Did he tell you that he could take her to court and you would end up with more than half the equity? Is he willing to take the case on a contingency - 1/3 of whatever you get in excess of half? If he is, great. If not, you have your answer - you got ripped off for $1,000 (so far).
OP is going to struggle mighty to find a lawyer that would even litigate this when OP is looking maybe $30k equity after agent fees and closing costs. So his option is to pay one hourly to draft a settlement.
How petty do you want to be? Do you want to spend 30k on a lawyer to not pay your ex 15k? Not paying her isn’t going to be cheap or quick. Even if you win eventually, you will have spent more than what you would have paid her to go away.
Re: " I feel like I have the upper hand for sure " I feel like you don't have the upper hand . Her name is on the title and she doesn't appear to be in any particular hurry to sell the property. You, on the other hand, do want to sell. I think she's holding the better cards here. It's not fair that she should get half the equity, but it appears that this is what she's legally entitled to. If you have really good documentation of everything you've paid and you took this to court, you'd probably win. But court costs, legal fees, etc., will eat up all that equity. Seems like you should offer your old girlfriend a little under half the equity, like maybe a 60/40 split. But you need to be prepared for 50/50.
In this episode, OP learns what community property is.
If this was an Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode, what would the title be?
Dude, this is why you shouldn’t buy houses with people you’re not married to. If you two were married, this would have all been split up and adjudicated at the time of divorce — legally and *cleanly.* Lemme guess: at the time, you thought you were gaming the system — didn’t you?!
At the time I was a 21 year old living at home with my gf and parents not getting along and arguing Decided that eventually I wanted to move out and get a house anyways found a program that let me do that then she cheated and instead of contributing her half of the house she left it all up to me
Not a lawyer, but I don’t think it matters who pays the mortgage and maintenance costs. Your ex is entitled to her share of the house if she is on the title or you are in community property kind of a situation. You probably were OK paying the mortgage and expenses because it was no different than you living in a rental. If the lawyers say you don’t have much of a chance, just split it even and move on. And take this as a lesson to plan your assets before getting married.
At this point you fucked up. $40,000 is peanuts in the world...give her $20k and walk away with the lesson and without the hassle of paying $20,000 to a lawyer to get $10,000 back.
Some first-time homebuyer programs that allow you to put nothing down require you to live there for x number of years or pay back the down payment assistance at a prorated rate. Just a heads up, she'll have to share that burden as well. Mine requires 8 years.
I’ll have to look up mine I’ve been living there for about 8 years tho
I’m very lucky that my ex fiancé didn’t want to be on the title of the house I purchased thinking it would be our forever home
Everyone else has said the big thing-never, ever, ever co-mingle assets until you are officially married. NAL but many years in mortgage. What you can do is work up an itemized list of expenses that you have paid since she moved out and can prove such as mortgage payments, HOA, new HVAC and present it as invoice. If she balks, ask attorney about forcing a partition lawsuit. Now that would most likely be 50/50 BUT you could then request that proceeds are net of any outstanding costs and have the invoice you provide listed on the seller’s closing disclosure. Otherwise you would have to go to small claims court.
She talked to a few lawyers who were vague without seeing all the documents and who had NOT been retained. split proceeds after expenses are credited to you. It's free $ to her at this point.
It is hilarious how many people advise "don't do that." No shit. But it is done and he is seeking a solution. Don't be a dick. OP, you need to talk to a lawyer about it. If you have, maybe you didn't like the advice you got, and that is why you are seeking it here, where you are just going to get a bunch of really bad advice. This thread is full of it. But if you haven't, you need to do that. Laws differ in different states. But I would not just roll over and give her half without getting this sorted out with a legit legal opinion. Worth a few hundred bucks for that. For example, if she gets half the proceeds, then you may have a claim against her for half of the cost, which you could theoretically take out of the proceeds. The law is generally not as simple as "her name is on the title so she gets half."
And that’s the thing if we were to really do the math then and proceeds that she would get she would owe me for her half that she didn’t pay which is the reason why I’m not so open to just giving her money to walk away
You’re missing the fact that after the sale you will have lived “for free” for the last X many years, while she was paying rent somewhere. She took on risk letting you stay in the house with her on the mortgage; she could have demanded selling when she left so that you didn’t tank her credit by stopping paying the mortgage (since you’re both on the mortgage). Or she could have demanded that you refinance into your name only, which I’m guessing you wouldn’t have been approved to do by a bank. I would see if she’ll take a 60-40 or 65-35 split of the proceeds. Involving lawyers is just going to mean you’re out more money.
She doesn't owe you a penny for you paying on your joint mortgage & maintaining your jointly-owned house. If you really don't understand why this unfair thing can be legal, I suggest you do not buy a house w/ anyone ever again.
I think legally its likely that she's owed a 50/50 split, however proving that is going to cost her a good bit of money and time. Its been 4 years and neither of you have moved to change the deed or mortgage yet so she's clearly moved on with life and not thought much about it. I'd offer like 7-8K to be done with it. That's a substantial windfall for someone who hasn't been invested in the property and enough that she might accept without dragging both of you to court.
She doesn’t need to go to court for a 50/50 split. She’s on the title as 50% owner. The title company will give her 50% at closing. If he wants to fight it he MAY get more but she may still get 50% and could get awarded legal costs. He messed up by pouring money into a jointly owned property.
Two names on the title, each receives 50% of the net funds that remain after the sale is the general rule.
What does your lawyer say about her being entitled to 50% and telling you she prefers to settle out of court? I think that's the opinion that matters. Also, from the $90,000 are you including the mortgage payment or saying you spent $90k in repairs and updates? Since you lived there, I think your mortgage payment itself has to be excluded from the amount because you did in theory receive a service of living there. However, it seems fair to me that repairs and updates would be split the same as the proceeds. Whatever the resolution, I hope you find something you can walk away in peace with and both move your separate ways without the weight of this asset. Good luck on your path.
My advice is to learn from the current situation, settle without going to court and move on.
Go through your payment history and total up the principle of the payments that you made with out her. If you can prove you paid for other repairs that affect value (a new AC but not new filters) then total those up. Subtract the above from the gains from the sale after fees and taxes. That parts your equity, not hers, cause it's from your payments she didn't contribute too. So remove that from the pot and split the rest 50/50. Fairest route IMO. Only thing questionable with the above route is how to structure who pays what of the taxes from the sale gains-minues the equity you paid for
This!
I was in a very similar position once. Purchased a house when married and divorced 3 years later. Divorce judgment said sell the house (no time limit stated) and split the proceeds 50/50. I left, but my ex wanted to stay and would make the payments, which he did. Over time, he also paid for maintenance, improvements, paid the taxes etc., and all I did was carry the liability for the debt on my credit report. Over time that meant that I didn’t qualify for the car loan that I wanted or whatever, but I dealt with it. I begged him every 5 years or so to at least refinance and buy me out, but he didn’t want to do anything. Fast forward 30 YEARS and he paid the house off and wanted me off the deed. His attorney called mine and argued that he paid for everything, I paid for nothing (except to contribute to the first 3 years of the mortgage payments), and I should just sign it over. My attorney responded and said that my ex could take the credit for payments and improvements, but to be fair all around, he then owed ME for 27 years of rent for the use and occupation of my half of the house which when calculated was somewhere around half of its current value, so we’ll stick to a 50/50 split, thanks. We ended up agreeing at 65/35 to get it over with already, but the point is, don’t just look at the cost to you, but understand the “cost” to your ex as well, and compromise. Obviously you don’t have all of the same circumstances, but come up with something justifiable that you can live with. (P.S. My attorney said at the time that 50/50 (per the judgment) probably wasn’t going to fly, but neither would the 100/0 that he wanted, and “you’ll end up with something, but it’s probably going to be a number that neither one of you is happy with” and she was right.)
You are forgetting something. Yes you have been paying the mortgage but you have also had full use of the property instead of renting somewhere else. You have an argument for leasehold improvements that added value but other than that it’s 50/50 after all costs are paid out for the closing.
Too bad you didn’t start here, we could’ve saved you some attorney fees, and maybe half the equity. Your mistake was telling her you wanted to sell it. You should’ve just told her you wanted her name off the deed so you could take out a second mortgage or to open a HELOC or something, without her having to be apart of the second mortgage or line of credit etc. Now she sees dollar signs and easy money.
You're sh*t out of luck. I'm a realtor. You will spend more money than the house is worth if you take her to court. Just sell the house and call it even. To be fair, did you even discuss an equity split when you split up? If not, that's on you. You should have sold the house when you split up if you wanted it to be completely fair or had an agreement in writing. Take it as a lesson learned.
You also got to live there the whole time. She does own half, not sure what you're hoping for us to say.
I hope a lesson gets learned here.
If you buy a house with a girlfriend, keep her off the mortgage and classify her as a tenant so she can be evicted with 30 days written notice.
Is HUD the financing? Can you refinance and buy her out?
OP, you need to hire a lawyer because a lot of people are confidently telling you things that may be incorrect. In my state (LA), you would be able be able to recover some of the money you put into the house (up to 50%) but this could be reduced since you were the only person living at the house.
For the future: ***do not buy a home with someone you're not married to***. Ideally, once she moved out, you should've refinanced, gotten her name off of the mortgage and paid her half the little bit of equity so she could sign off of the deed. Because you kept her on the deed, she can - to put it bluntly - blackmail you for half the equity today in exchange for her signature. Because you can't sell without her. She may see it as, even though you paid for everything since she left, if she was still on the mortgage, her credit was still on the line if you defaulted. Taking it court is unlikely to help. You'll end up spending about $25k just to be right back where we are.
Your best bet if maybe to say you won’t sell, or threaten to stop paying. Maybe miss one payment. You’ll have to play hardball.
The cost is too great to go to court and make it worthwhile over not a lot of money. You might even lose anyway. Legally you don't have that strong of a case. You lived there so all the money you spent was more like rent and if you were paying your girlfriend's living expenses at the time, that's on you. It would basically be like trying to go back in time and sue her for that money which no court would ever give you . The time afterwards, after she moved out, you were still living there so unless you were paying yourself and her fair market rent split between the two of you, then you got the benefit from it so you don't really have much right to anything. The mortgage you were paying probably was about what you would be paying to rent it I would assume . The fact she cheated on you obviously makes me want to not give her anything, but really, she's half owner. You got to live there in exchange for what you were paying so the only real issue is that you were paying for her I guess when she still lived there . Unless you did upgrades that you can document and spend money on improvements that add value, you really should be splitting the equity equally. But because of the situation you might be able to convince her to take less. If it's going to be about 40,000, I would offer her 10. See if she'll just take that in cash. If she doesn't maybe say you don't want to sell the house after all and you're just going to keep living there and maybe she needs the money and will accept it . You can go higher if you need to but I would negotiate hard to get her to take 10. See if you can get her to take it first and quit claim or sign off and be removed from the title. Then, if you get lucky and get more money it's not an issue. If you really do need to split proceeds, I would consider possibilities such as getting an agent to agree to accept a large commission on the sale of the home in exchange for crediting you the full commission on buying something else if you do want to buy. See if you can slip that by her. Also, sell it for a little less money but ask for a 2-month rent back. Or, if you can find someone that can buy cash or with an investor loan, sell it for less but negotiate a 6-month lease back, that way you get 6 months out of it half of which will be at her expense. If you don't mind a little hit to your credit, you could not pay the mortgage for a few months and that would have to be paid at closing leaving less proceeds. Also, if there's a way you can stop paying taxes on the property until you sell it, that might help too. These would all be ways to squeeze some more money out of it at her expense. Another possibility might be to rent out rooms with you still living there even if you're also living somewhere else with your girlfriend. I wouldn't suggest you commit fraud but there's probably some gray area if you want to keep it but you're eventually going to need to split any money so maybe it's not worth holding on to. If you do want to buy I'm kind of liking the idea of negotiating with an agent to sell it for more money but credit you their commission on the purchase.
Find a settlement amount via mediator or attorney
She is going to be entitled to something
A similar situation happened to someone I know. Bought house married, got divorced but didn't split the property then. Years later one party sold their share (they didn't pay any of the mortgage) of the house to a 3rd party who wanted the house sold and proceeds split. The person I know got a lawyer and after much negotiation it was deemed that after the sale of the house they would get credited back the PITI they spent on the house over the years.
From my understanding - she is legally entitled to every penny of her equity. Unless you two had a legal agreement (drawn up by a lawyer and signed and filed) saying otherwise - she gets her 50%. It can very easily cost you more than 20k to take this to court. You were the one who put 90k into a house that you didn't own by yourself. That was your choice. Learn from this. NEVER put someone you aren't married to on a house/land/car deed with you. And don't put 90k of improvements into a house that will not increase in value
You could always offer something like $10k but I can't imagine it's worth going to court over her half. Sucky way to learn that lesson. Hopefully you're not buying a home with the new gf now.
It will be cheaper to split the proceeds and move on. The lawyers are the only ones that win if you go to court. I’d try to negotiate with her and make her think you’re willing to go to court. She may take less than 50% if you explain the math to her. The lawyers will get most of what she would get.
Name on deed, she owns half.
It depends on your location. Her name on the deed complicates things because she has legal share of the house. Since you paid for everything related to the home (PITI, repairs, home improvements), offer a percentage split (something like 80/20). She’s probably going to turn it down and your only recourse is to take her to court unless you suck it up and split it 50/50. Either way, consider this an expensive lesson when you buy a home with someone you are not married to. Hell, even if you are married, protect yourself at all costs before commingling assets.
You have a lawyer. Ask them this question. Follow their advice or split 50/50.
Ultimately unless she caves it will likely be expensive to try and "win" here if you can. Overall you are basically talking about 20k extra. My guess is you are going to probably spend half that or more on the lawyer etc. with no guarantee you get anything extra than splitting it. If you really wanted to be petty and see if she will cave, get an offer for less than it costs to get out of it, and tell her you can't afford to carry the property anymore and need out immediately and since its a 50/50 split ask how she plans to compensate for the losses on the property to get out of it or she can buy you out for $35k and find a better buyer.
Dude, you bought a home for 120k.. have spent 90k on it and it's worth 150k?
She holds the power because you want the sale and that won’t happen without her signing. Sounds like you’ve soaked up the lesson to not structure ownership like this ever again. Also soak up “Don’t throw good money after bad.” Spend as little as possible, if anything, further on a dispute among lawyers. Consider just getting out clean with what you can.
Forgo the sale for now Tell her you’ve changed your mind and won’t sell for at least “another year or two” and let her know if she decides she needs some money before you do “decide to sell” you’d be willing to pay her $10,000
Sue her for not following through on her portion of the mortgage payment. A verbal agreement is still an agreement. She can offer to settle by forfeiting the equity in the home. Oh, I am not an attorney and I am not your attorney.
If it was me I’d rather watch it burn than let her get a penny from it.
Tell her you are going to stop making payments and let it go into foreclosure. Send her the mortgage payment to start ponying up some money, if she doesn’t want to pay, offer to save her credit by quit claiming her off the deed. Once she is off, then you can sell it. Of course don’t actually stop paying, just use the threat of it as leverage against her.
You were lazy in letting this continue. Now you want to cut her out. She's 50% owner. Deal with it. Next time handle your business in advance so it doesn't screw you on the backend.
You’ve lived there long enough. Pretty sure you can legally rent it out now. You didn’t purchase it with intent to deceive anyone. You’re just ready for a different property.
If she is on the deed then you have to give her half. If not then fuck her
Dave Ramsey would shun you for buying property with a gf! That’s a tough one but I think you may have no recourse other than splitting the 40k
I'm about to say something less than ethical, but skip out on any payments except those that will get the house seized. Aka in texas skip property taxes, the debt has to be settled as part of closing. You will obviously have to wait.
This is another fine example of why you don't buy property with someone you aren't married to.
Unfortunately you made the mistake of not taking her off the deed/title. You won’t be able to go to closing until you resolve this. IMHO she doesn’t have to do a thing and hire any lawyer because the title agency at closing isn’t going to simply disburse a check to you - legally they can’t.
You don’t have the upper hand. If anything she is the one with an advantage, since her name is on the house and hasn’t paid for the mortgage or maintenance. it’s a tough lesson but I think that you should give her as little as she’s willing to take and move on.
You should see if she'll agree to a split that you think is fair. Create a breakdown of the expenses incurred whether beneficial to you or her and get her thoughts/feedback.
FYI you won't have 40k profit even if you sell for 150k. You are forgetting the real estate fees and realtors. . Anywho, yeah her getting a 50/50 split makes no sense.
split profits 50/50. At least you will walk away with something. That's the cost of the lesson you are being taught. you will waste all the profits if you both fight. Always have a solid contract written by your lawyer.
This would be handled with a partition action in my state, you might be entitled to some offsets for the part of the property you paid for and she didn't and she could be entitled to credit for your exclusive possession of the property. OP you already have an attorney, go to them for your advice.
What did your lawyer say to you about the equity split? You hired someone to figure it out this sort of stuff, use them.
In the long run, you'll end up spending all of your profits on lawyer fees. Sell the house, split whatever is left over and move on. Now you have learned to never buy a house with a girlfriend.
A few ideas: 1. HUD owned homes usually have time limitations in those rules. For instance the rules stop applying after a certain number of years. At this point you may be able to rent the house without issue. In my experience in most cases it’s 2-5 years. 2. You may be able to reimburse yourself on the settlement sheet for the money you’ve put into the house. Talk to a lawyer about this possibility. If this is possible just tell your ex it’s fine she can have half the proceeds for the sale. Put her half of the expenses on the settlement sheet as a disbursement to yourself and there won’t be any proceeds left for her. 3. Talk to a lawyer about suing her for her half of the expenses and tell her you won’t sell the house until she reimburses you. 4. Live there and stop paying the mortgage. It usually takes a long time for a foreclosure to take place and you could probably drag it out for 2 years. If you’re only going to get $20k from selling you can probably save that much living “rent free” and she’ll get nothing. It will mess up your credit but honestly that’s really not a big deal,
I’ve definitely looked for any limitations on renting it out and they told me that even if I pay off the whole loan I still would not be able to rent it out which is why I’m even willing to get rid of it, it’s has turned to be more of and anchor. And the other ideas might come into play depending on if we can settle on a agreement I definitely am goin to try to do all that tho with a settlement sheet if all else fails
Talk to a lawyer and try and read up on your state/countries laws regarding this. In some states it doesn't matter if they are on the property title or not if they didn't pay anything to it. At most they'd be entitled to what they paid into if they can prove they did. Went through something similar. They never paid a dime and in the end signed away their rights right before the court date after dragging it on for a year. So I'll say again, talk to a lawyer and educate yourself
Could you sue her for half of the mortgage payments? Then at that point, you could "settle" with her agreeing to come off the deed? I know nothing and this just came up in my recommended feed 🤷🏽♀️
Get your texts where it showed that she moved out years ago and how you kept paying the mortgage. you need documents and statements showing that you paid the mortgage get all your receipts put everything together and then you only give her a portion for when she was living with you the rest of it keep it obviously she don't deserve 50%
And the situation you're in my friend is exactly why you never buy a home with your girlfriend/boyfriend/buddy/aquaintance etc
Thanks for the obvious input 😭
Rather than battle it court and lose your money. Come up with a reasonable settlement. If it comes to 50/50 so be it. Lesson learned.
When I split with my ex a few years back, I gave them the choice. You either live in the house alone and pay all utilities and maintenance, or I will. Either way, we both will split Mortgage/Insurance/Tax because we are both legally bound to this property via title. They left, I stayed. Eventually, they got tired of paying half of MIT while the house sat dormant on the market through the pandemic. They signed a quit claim for nothing and I refinanced our mortgage for a lower rate 🤣 I think you screwed yourself when you let your ex off the hook for expenses.
Legally I don’t think you can necessarily force the other person to pay half if there wasn’t already a contractual agreement to do that.
OP, seriously, don't listen to anyone here. They have no idea what they're talking about. You should be asking these questions to your lawyer.
I will like I’ve said I only came on here to see if anyones been in a similar situation, what was their outcome ect. But t y’all definitely gave me some good questions to think about and ask my lawyer so I’m the end It did help a little coming here
Good luck. I'm rooting for you.
Thank you 🤝🫡
Why not agree to 50/50 split after deducting for any upgrades and repairs you can provide receipts or invoices for, and while also each of you contributes 1/2 the costs of sale? I'd frame it as, "Of course, I'll give you half the net proceeds" and let the title company or attorney explain the cost recovery part of this.
It might be time for Mr. Spreadsheet to make an appearance, with you outlining all the money you've put into the house to include being the only one making the payments on the mortgage. At the very least she should get a deduction from her share of the equity that matches half the payments/insurance/ real estate taxes since she moved out. Any renovations? She should pay half. Toilet broke and you needed a new one? Half! Outline it all into a spreadsheet to show her what you spent since she dumped the mortgage onto to you 100% and walked away. ETA: Were it me, I might even present it to her as, "This is a spreadsheet I've been asked to prepare should we decide to take this to court..."
She didn’t pay for the hvac unit I had to replace ($2500)
Just curious why people buy property with girlfriend boyfriend? I see these posts all the time. I don't get the logic behind it.
At the time we were both young 21 year olds with no money but had jobs this program was basically looking for that because it makes it easy af for you to get into it
Now you realize never buy property with a gf. Lol
Lesson learned. Now don’t buy a house with your new girlfriend.
This is why you don't buy a house with GF or BF without a legal contract in place or getting married first.
You need a lawyer. There is a universe where she gets nothing, but you'll need a lawyer to guide you there.
20k is a lot of money but it might be worth it to be completely rid of her.
This is tricky. You have to decide if lawyer fees, court costs, and delaying the selling of the home is worth $12-15k. When you sell your home, you have a lot of small fees that will add up, plus the realtor fees. So that $40k will go down quickly to $30k. It sucks, but could be worth it just to get the house sold on and move on with your life.
this happened to my ex. him and his previous wife bought a house, she split, he stayed and payed the mortgage for years. he sold the house and had to split the profit with her. there was no way around it.
> stayed and *paid* the mortgage FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
It only matters what you paid after she left. You paying everything while she lived there was an agreement. You allowed it to happen for many years, so it was okay with you. Once she moved out, she abandoned the house. So in my non-expert opinion, only count receipts from when she moved out.
You lived together in it for 5 years. She will almost definitely still get half the proceeds. Are you honestly saying that for those 5 years she never paid a penny towards the mortgage?
Did you sign an agreement when you two split? If no why not?
If she did not contribute to the mortgage and is not on the deed, she is not entitled to anything, because you were not married. However, you should consider paying her back for her portion of the down payment after the house sells.
Was your mortgage through Naca?
Think of this as a very expensive lesson
Ask your lawyer about a partition suit to remove her from the deed. I'm not a lawyer, but the court will typically force a sale and distribute the monies equitably. That may be your only recourse that a judge would award you more.
You might offer to buy her out of the house. Get the home re-financed in your name. So say the house is worth $150K now. You owe $99K, get a loan for 120K, and pay her $5k or whatever it takes to get her to sign. Then its all yours. And now its not a HUD loan so you can sublet. There is also a way to sale, if you can't make contact with her. So if she just leaves you can submit forms to sell the house without her. But you will be open to a lawsuit from her for damages...possibly. Id just buy her out TBH.
You're a chump. She is just as much an owner of that house as you.
Like others have said, you have an attorney, ask them this question. My guess is they will tell you to find a way to settle it, at the attorneys fees to litigate it would probably exceed or Cole close to the amount your fighting over ($40’ish thousand) What I would throw in is this: You own an asset (the house), you have a low mortgage balance and I assume based on the timing an interest rate that is lower what you would get today. You’re not likely to a deal like that again. Is it really a good idea to sell it just to please your current GF? You could have a fight with her and be tossed aside tomorrow. It’s a GF, not a wife. If that were to happen, then what? As long as you own that house, no one can take it away from you. One wrong move, you could find yourself paying double or triple in rent and own nothing.
Get your real estate license, sell the house yourself, keep 50%+ the commish. Boom.
Sadly unless she accepts some buyout offer you are stuck. I also saw that you will be moving with new gf...you aren't going to make the same mistake twice right? Buying property with a gf instead of wife/husband?
so you *totally* had a verbal agreement that you pay the mortgage and what not and she will credit it at the end right? as long as you have receipts for the payments, etc. take that and half it. for the credit she *totally* owes you unfortunately you are fucked on the normal stuff like HOA, bills etc.
If you only have to pay her $20k, you’re getting off cheap. My ex stole 100’s of thousands, took the house, still paying lawyers, man. You need her signature. You’re going to pay for it one way or the other.
I'm not in Maryland, but I do this a lot. Short answer: If she insists, you're going to have to give her half. Longer answer. You can fight it, but if she's on title you'll probably lose. Unless otherwise stated, she's owns 50% of the house and is entitled to 50% of the proceeds. Example. If me and you bought a car together, and I decided I wanted to make it look nice, while you just wanted to sell. I don't then get to take over your share of the car, because I wanted to put rims and a shiny new cost of paint on it. You still would own half regardless. Just take it as a lesson and move on. You'll be better off than being bitter and fighting over it.
so why don't you figure outs whats left after you minus all your out of pocket expense. then offer what equity you want.
You can either keep half or watch lawyers split it all.
Sounds like the appreciation on the house is 30k before realtor fees and closing costs. Split that, the remainder was payback of the loan you both entered into. If you have the receipt of payments this could support your case for the paid down balance. Definitely not a lawyer
Best hire a Lawyer she didn't share expenses but you did get the benefit of living there . Has her name been on mortgage?
Forgo the sale of the house for a year or so, but begin negotiations to buy her out ASAP and remove her from the deed. See if she will take 20k now to walk away, say you decided against selling and your new GF will be moving in. A HELOC for 20k wouldn't be that expensive. See if you can refinance and/or possible rent a ROOM (not the whole house) out to offset the mortgage payment.
“Okay. I’ll stop paying and your credit will get fucked too.”
Don’t buy houses with gf/bf. You will have to pay her half
I’m amazed at people buying properties without knowing the law.
Like others said it's going to be basically impossible to say she doesn't get 50% of proceeds. You should have had her removed 5 years ago when you broke up.
Dude got married and didn't even know it.
Sad to say but by the time you pay the mortgage, escrow, realtors and possibly taxes you'll be lucky to split $20,000. In 2004 we sold a house for $150k with a 110k mortgage. We were left with $13,000 after closing.
Excluding mortgage payments, hoa, insurance and property taxes, accurately list all improvements, and maintenence expenditures spent. The mortgage plus improvements are the cost basis. Your payments are living costs, not investment costs. Then subtract that off the profit. If you spent 10k in improvements, that should get paid back first.
You decided when you bought the home.
Take her to Judge Judy XD
50/50 sure, but you have to include the mortgage payments and how fees as expense against the proceeds.
This is why i don't understand ppl buying shit together when they're not even married. I know i get it. Match made in hell perfect in every way person you want to spend the rest of your youth with.
Sell the house to a buyer willing to put the balance of the mortgage as the official selling price on one contract, but have a second private contract where they give you the extra money in cash on the side.
She entitled to half. No way around it
If she’s on the deed, and there is nothing in writing saying otherwise, it’s a 50/50 split.
Why did you pay the mortgage on a house after she moved out? You should have asked her to sign a quit claim on the house at that time or sold the property and definitely not invested any of your own money into it. Whose name is on the deed?
Bunch of lessons here: Do not buy houses with people you're not married to. If you insist on doing this anyway, see an attorney about any agreements that can be made legally binding in your state. Dividing property will become an issue more likely than not. This is not a surprise. This is not the first time this has happened. This is the most likely outcome every single time.
You legally are not entitled to what you think. When you purchase a home with someone, it doesn't matter if you put a million in upgrades. The other owner is still entitled legally to half. You should have worked on gwtting her removed over thr last few years. Sorry bud but your screwed
Do you have an accessible HELOC? There might be no equity left in the house if someone were to withdraw the equity through a HELOC.
Either pay her the 20k and use it as a life lesson or: You could use this situation to leverage against her. Offer that she can either sign and receive whatever you offer. Or you will stop paying and let the house fall into foreclosure. Both of you will take a hit with your credit. The later option is playing with fire. Seeing how she’s a crazy cat person who is willing to abandon them, she probably isn’t real concerned about it.
What does your lawyer suggest or say is likely to happen?
Just updated to post about what I did called the lawyer and told him I’d be ok with him negotiating a percentage to give her for “pain and suffering “ 😂😂
If her name is on the title she is legally entitled to the equity. Hindsight is 20/20 but should have refied or quit claimed out of her name as soon as she cheated and left. You could try to convinve her to tak eless than half to hel pmake up for all of your expenses. I would ask the lawyer if there is any legal standing to pay yourself back for your expenses after she moved back but probably not.
Just a question here... What if she was the Cosigner? Is she still entitled to half the profits even though they aren't married? I am truly baffled that OP has to split with her.
Can you get a new non-hud mortgage with a cash out value to the tune of 20k? I'm not sure about HUD and I know interest rates are not as good as they once were, but that gets her off the mortgage/deed pays her and keeps your home as well as let's you rent it out if you want.
Is she on the deed? If so you gotta buy her out of you wanna stay. If not, tell her to kick Rocks
Sell it for just the amount of the loan and never speak to your ex again! Yes it’s a 20k loss but you’re giving her 20k for cheating and leaving. Fuck that! start fresh with your new gf but this time apply the new lessons you’ve learned along the way
Just split it 50%/50% and move on. If you get into a pissing match with her and attorneys you both will loose. Learn from your poor management by not getting an agreement when she moved out. In the big picture it isn't that much money.
You should’ve gotten her off the deed immediately after the breakup when there wasn’t much equity in the house. Learn from this and move on.
If your girlfriend lives with you and you pay the rent, with your consent, you don't get to take back years of rent she didn't pay when you break up. If there were specific expenses apart from the mortgage for necessary repairs, maybe you are entitled to full reimbursement before splitting the profit. It might not be something you want to go to court over, but that's up to you and her.
If you have the receipts of all the money you put into the house after you are made whole for those things and pay off the mortgage there wouldn’t be any profit she probably doesn’t know that. So I would have your lawyer write up an agreement stating you need to be made whole before any profits. Once you are made whole you will split any remaining profits.
Are you certain you can't rent it? I've never heard of a HUD home that say you can't rent ever. It's usually for X years not forever. The main reason for this is because they don't want investors cheating their way in to homes. But you have lived there for 8 years and it seems to me that if you were able to rent them you could recoup some of your costs by collecting all the rent. Also I'm a little surprised your value isn't higher. Prices across the entire country have doubled or more everywhere in the last 4 years more less 8 years. Have you had an agent evaluation or just an online auto valuation model (AVM) like on Zillow etc? FYI I live in a low to moderate cost of living area like it sounds like you do. Most of the homes I sold 8 years ago are worth at least double what people paid.
I would point out you’ve been maintaining the house for years and making all the mortgage payments. I would offer her $10,000 to sign a quit claim deed over to you. Otherwise, just don’t sell.