Question around legal rights

[questions123]

My common law and myself have split after 10 years. We own a house together, have our own debts and will be splitting all joint items up evenly.

She currently lives in the house and we both put a certain amount of money into an account that covers the mortgage and all bills. I pay all of these from this account.

This has been a generally amicable split but recently someone else has come into my life that I am moving forward with. This has now irrated my ex. We do not have a formal separation agreement in place as everywhere I read it was not required. There are no kids involved.

My questions:

1. I understand I am repsonsible for half the mortgage as my name is on the mortgage/ownership of the house, but am I responsible to pay half the bills since she is living there? For example her long distance phone bills, HDTV, consumers gas etc,etc, etc.?

2. Once we get offers on the house, what happens if she does not accept the offer and I am willing to accept it to get the house sold before the market crashes further. Do I have any recourse since she is not being flexible?

thanks for your help
Questions123

[FL_Needs_To_Change]

A 10yr, CL union with both names on the deed, means you are both entitled to half it's equity.

I wouldn't say an agreement isn't necessary. Void the fact that you did not have children, I would still look into getting one done to settle the issue of the house and any other debt.

If you are both willing to split everything equally having the agreement state this would save alot of trouble with respect to the home and it's costs before things go any farther south with respect to amicability.
I understand that there is provision in the calculations for a party that maintains a home void an agreement to the contrary to cover costs incurred with it's ownership, IE mortgage, insurance, but not the other bills like the phone and television as these are personal choices of hers to maintain.
This link should help sort the issue of asset calculation.

http://www.ottawadivorce.com/forum/f...-payment-3788/

[questions123]

Thanks for that info. Any idea on what happens when we have an offer on the house and we can't agree on what an acceptable offer is? If I want to accept and she won't, do I have any legal rights at that point?

[dadtotheend]

You can't force her to accept an offer she isn't happy with and vice versa.