Matrimonial Home Partly Owned by Parents/In-Laws

Hylton-Potts - London Based Law Firm Helping People Across the UK since 1999

We often get consulted by clients whose matrimonial home is partly owned by the parents or a relative of one of the spouses. This is particularly common in the Muslim culture where such properties are often bought two or three at a time, often next door to each other. Frequently physical possession is moved around without legal or beneficial ownership being also recorded, as their children grow up, buy their own properties leave and come back and so on.

On a divorce the important thing is to make sure of the parents’ or relative’s rights are recognised. They may well choose to give their share to their child after the divorce, but they want to be in a position of recovering their investment, they can make that decision. Sometimes there is a loan. Judges sometimes call these “soft loans” but in law they can often be enforced, if the right legal advice is taken.

We have had great successes in this area. Here is one recent example;

Mr G and his wife bought a house with the aid of a £40,000 loan from Mr G’s parents. The parents’ names were not on the deeds. Nevertheless we were able to persuade the judge to accept giving the parents an interest in the property.

Accordingly when the judge ordered the sale of the property he ordered that the parents received their £40,000 back before the property was divided between the husband and the wife.

This enabled the husband’s parents, in practice, to make that £40,000 available to him so that he could buy a larger property in particular one suitable for his children to stay which literally was a life changing event, and we were very happy for him

We persuaded the judge that that this was a genuine loan and husband was able to get on with his life and focus on building a relationship with the children.

Consult Hylton-Potts, the experts who offer fixed fees, and give excellent value.

We operate a free and confidential 24 hour email service. Just click on [email protected] or, during office hours, there is a free and confidential legal helpline 020 7381 8111.