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Boyfriend / Girlfriend real estate split?

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1

138Robert

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? California
My girlfriend and I bought a house in Santa Clara County, California.
We went in on it 50/50 on a 5 year loan agreement in 2002. She left me 3 years into the house purchase.
She paid 50% of everything all the way up til December 2005. She moved out and took the table/vaccumm etc, all the things she wanted. She also left all her storage type stuff stored in one bedroom for hte past 2 years.
So I have been paying all the mortgage, all the property insurance, all the property taxes and all the maintenance and upkeep on the house. She now wants me to buy her out.

Is she entitled to half of the appraised value at today's market but minus half of the mortgage/property tax/insurance that I paid out up until now?
Or is she entitled to half of the appraised value at the date she moved out and I wont collect any of the mortgage/tax or insurances paid from that time on?
It is a real sticky situation?
Any advice on how this whole thing should get seperated would be great??
Thank you
 


Ohiogal

Ohiogal

Queen Bee
Quite frankly as half owner (if she is on the deed) she is entitled to half the total equity that is in the house (appraised value minus mortgage balance -- then divide that total by two and that is what she should be paid).
 
LdiJ

LdiJ

Senior Member
138Robert said:
What is the name of your state? California
My girlfriend and I bought a house in Santa Clara County, California.
We went in on it 50/50 on a 5 year loan agreement in 2002. She left me 3 years into the house purchase.
She paid 50% of everything all the way up til December 2005. She moved out and took the table/vaccumm etc, all the things she wanted. She also left all her storage type stuff stored in one bedroom for hte past 2 years.
So I have been paying all the mortgage, all the property insurance, all the property taxes and all the maintenance and upkeep on the house. She now wants me to buy her out.

Is she entitled to half of the appraised value at today's market but minus half of the mortgage/property tax/insurance that I paid out up until now?
Or is she entitled to half of the appraised value at the date she moved out and I wont collect any of the mortgage/tax or insurances paid from that time on?
It is a real sticky situation?
Any advice on how this whole thing should get seperated would be great??
Thank you
Click to expand...
She is entitled to half of the equity in the home, period. It doesn't matter that you have been the only one paying the mortgage payments.

Equity equals appraised value minus the mortgage principal balance in this instance.

I understand that its probably not fair morally for you to not get some compensation for the fact that you have been paying the mortgage alone for the last two years, however that's not the way that it works legally.

If you can get her to agree to credit you for 1/2 of the mortgage payments you have made for the last two years that's fine, but you also have to remember that you have had the exclusive use of the property (other than the things she has stored there) for the last two years as well.
 
1

138Robert

Junior Member
? BF / GF trying to see the fairness?

So we bought the house for $500K
The principal left over is approx. $350
It is worth $750K now equalling $400 gain, $200K each.
I paid all the mortgage, property taxes, insurance for the past 2 years on my own totaling totaling $48,400.00, her half equalling $24,200.00. Not to mention I didn't abandoned the property leaving myself soley responsible for maintenance/upkeep and no default on the loan.
And what you're saying is legally right or morally right is 'to not deduct' the $24,200.00 which is her half of the loan and property expense off of the $200k of the equity making her payout of $175,800 ? ?

We both agreed to pay this debt at the time of loan signing when we entered the house as a 'boyfriend girlfriend' couple that had only been together for 3 years at the time to see this 5 year loan to the end of the term and she left halfway and didn't have to pay any of the mortgage since then. If this is true, that is a great deal.

I talked with a few mortgage people and divorce people and they said it is kind of a grey area and not set in stone by law?

Thank you for any more advice or knowledge.
 
Ohiogal

Ohiogal

Queen Bee
She is HALF owner. SHe is therefore entitled to HALF the equity. Provided of course that she holds title as Joint tenant.
 
M

moburkes

Senior Member
You might not think that its fair, but the law is looking at the legal doucments that you both signed which gave you both 1/2 of the rights. The law is not responsible for the fact that 2 unmarried people bought a house without regard for the future (in which you are no longer together).
 
LdiJ

LdiJ

Senior Member
138Robert said:
So we bought the house for $500K
The principal left over is approx. $350
It is worth $750K now equalling $400 gain, $200K each.
I paid all the mortgage, property taxes, insurance for the past 2 years on my own totaling totaling $48,400.00, her half equalling $24,200.00. Not to mention I didn't abandoned the property leaving myself soley responsible for maintenance/upkeep and no default on the loan.
And what you're saying is legally right or morally right is 'to not deduct' the $24,200.00 which is her half of the loan and property expense off of the $200k of the equity making her payout of $175,800 ? ?

We both agreed to pay this debt at the time of loan signing when we entered the house as a 'boyfriend girlfriend' couple that had only been together for 3 years at the time to see this 5 year loan to the end of the term and she left halfway and didn't have to pay any of the mortgage since then. If this is true, that is a great deal.

I talked with a few mortgage people and divorce people and they said it is kind of a grey area and not set in stone by law?

Thank you for any more advice or knowledge.
Click to expand...
She is 1/2 owner of the property, period. Therefore she is entitled to 1/2 of the equity, period. True, she did not contribute to the mortgage or upkeep during the 2 year period, but she also did not have use of the property either. She could even claim that you owe her rent for having exclusive use of her 1/2 of the property....which could cancel out what she might owe you.

The bottom line is that unless she agrees...and she may agree, it would be quite difficult for you to prevail, legally, with deducting half of the mortgage payments from her share of the equity.
 
S

seniorjudge

Senior Member
It doesn't matter what kind of tenancy the land is held in.

If you have a partition suit, the court will look over each person's contributions and may or may not do equity (which is the same word as has been bandied about above but in this case can be loosely defined as "justice".)

Also, it depends on what written agreements that the parties had.
 
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