Hi all
My partner and I of 20 years have a property we live in that is both owned by us. She also has a property owned by her outside London which is rented out.
We have split up and are amicable and we are currently living together but I would like to move on. We have both agreed we would rather not sell our current house (although it does have significant equity) and uproot the kids. There is very little equity, if any, in her other property.
I’m looking for ideas/suggestions that will enable me to walk away with something financially, doesn’t have to be half the equity. She does not earn much and so any income from the other property will go some way to helping pay the mortgage when I leave. I don’t have a pension and would like to walk away with something which I can use to invest in retirement.
Is it possible to get some sort of legal agreement for her to pay me some sort of fixed income? Do you have to been married?
Open to any other ideas, suggestions that would provide me with something? Also worth mentioning, although we are not married and our kids are 17 and 22.
Hi,
I suggest you seek legal advice. Many solicitors offer a free consultation. This is from a legal site:
Unmarried couples and individual rights
Unmarried couples do not have the same legal obligations to one another as their married counterparts and a multitude of issues can arise over the ownership of property upon separation.
An unmarried person’s rights in relation to property are significantly affected by whether or not there are children of the relationship. If there are, it is open to a parent to make an application under Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989 for a lump sum, settlement or transfer of property order.
However, since the law is that the cohabitant herself (it is still usually the mother making the claim) has no claims in her own right, any capital which is awarded to purchase a property is likely to be held in trust until the child’s majority or the end of full-time education, whereupon the capital sum will revert to the payer.
Unmarried couples do not acquire the right to claim capital or maintenance against the other, irrespective of how long they cohabit. A separating unmarried couple will ordinarily divide any assets held jointly in accordance with their legal ownership.
In certain cases, however, one of the parties can argue that he or she should receive a larger share than the actual legal ownership of an asset. This argument will usually focus on the parties’ home. Typical examples are where one party has contributed substantial capital to the property that is not reflected in the legal ownership, or where one party has made a promise to the other that he or she will share ownership in the property but has then reneged on this promise to the other’s detriment.