It’s not just a fight over who gets to keep the fancy silverware for this couple, as the wife revealed her ex is refusing to sell the house completely due to financial worries
From butting heads over who keeps the sofa and who keeps the TV, one former couple is even at loggerheads over the actual sale of their house after splitting.
After separating from her partner, a homeowner has been left in a predicament after her ex has refused to sell their family home, as well as refusing her offer of buying him out.
They bought the home four years ago and shared it with their three children, but she claims her ex has “point blank” refused to move out of the home due to his bad credit score affecting him being able to move elsewhere. While she wants to be able to move on from their split, she said he’s making it impossible.
She took to Reddit to share the ordeal and said: “We decided to separate recently, and I would like to sell our home to be able to move on with my life. We have three children and all three will live with me following the separation,” @Difficult_Gate_2194 penned in the r/HousingUK Reddit thread.
“We bought the property four years ago and two years ago my partner took out an IVA [an Individual Voluntary Agreement, which is a contract between an individual and their creditors to pay back debts over time] in his name. He basically got himself into debt by taking out multiple loans to fund a gambling addiction at the time and eventually could no longer afford the repayments.
“Fast forward to now and I have been trying to come to some sort of agreement with him about selling and moving out of the property. Initially we agreed he would attempt to buy me out, but we quickly found out this would not be able to happen due to the IVA so since then I have been asking him to sell up.”
But now she said he is refusing and said the “courts won’t make him homeless” and told her the only option is for her to go and rent somewhere if she no longer “wants to be in the home”. “It doesn’t seem fair to me that I should have to leave and struggle, and he gets to stay in the family home all because of his irresponsibility with money,” she added.
She said she’d offered to buy him out of the property and give him £20,000, which amounts to half of the equity they would each gain if they sold up. However, he refused the gesture.
The post further detailed: “He states he will struggle to rent anywhere with his credit, so I’ll effectively be making him homeless. The £20,000 he would get from me buying him out would need to be paid into his IVA as he owes three times this amount. The company he has the IVA with advised him they would need to take 85% of any profit he made from selling his share of the property. This is the reason he doesn’t want to do it.”
Redditors were quick to advise her on her options, as one person suggested: “If he won’t sell voluntarily you’re only option is to apply to the courts to force a sale. They look at the interests of all parties, and given the children live with you and not in the property the court may look favourably at your application.”
While another stated: “He’s made himself homeless by gambling his financial future away. If he kept the house he’d eventually default on the payments and it would likely be repossessed anyway. Get to court and force the sale.”
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