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  • Scared and uncertain

    I've searched through these posts and haven't found a situation quite like mine (or anyone quite as dumb and trusting as me) so I decided to start a new thread. I have two children who were 8 and 11 when I met my current common-law spouse. A year after we met we decided to buy a house together. He let me design it, but because I had a bankruptcy several years before I met him, the mortgage was put in his name. He made the $5000 down payment. I sold or threw out all of my old furniture because we wanted everything new. We had no written agreements with each other, it was all verbal. My kids had to move to new schools and turned their lives around so that we could move in together. He purchased all the furniture using credit cards which he later added to the mortgage when he renewed. When it was time to renew the mortgage, I told him I wanted my name on it, as my credit was good by then, and he said that was fine. Then he went and renewed the mortgage behind my back and told me later when I asked him when we were going to renew. After 6 years, I've found out he is cheating on me and I want out of the relationship. We have both split the mortgage and household costs equally since we moved in together. I have always paid all the school fees, sports fees, etc, as well as anything else that applied to the children. At the moment, we make about the same annual salary. Now I want to keep the house, and am willing to take over the mortgage, but he doesn't want to move out. He wants to pay me $50,000 but it's been 8 months since we discussed it and I still haven't seen anything. Everytime I ask what we're going to do, he gets angry and leaves the room. I don't want to turn this into a terrible experience for my kids, who are 18 and 15 now, but I don't know where to turn. I'm in Alberta and I'm not sure of my rights here. I talked to a lawyer who said not to move out, but said it would cost $30,000 to take him to court. The house appraisal was $395K and we owe $210K on it. I'm also afraid that as we've been sleeping in separate rooms for 8 months the common law relationship may not apply anymore? I don't want to get anything that isn't mine, and as I receive child support from the children's father I'm not looking for that from him, but I also don't want to completely disrupt my kids lives again because I'm too afraid to stand up for our rights. Does anyone have any advice? All the info I can find online seems to apply to Ontario.

  • #2
    As far as I know, you will split the house equally, minus the downpayment, etc that he put into it. You will aslo split the furnishing and anything else you bought while you were together.
    Make sure you have copies and proof of all your contributions if it does go to court.
    Google 'common law alberta' and you should get the appropriate page and help.

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    • #3
      Good advice, copies of recipts of sale for the furnature etc is the way to proceed with this.
      Showing that the debt was rolled into the mortgage demonstrates that the only issue on the table is the mortgage and ownership of the home.

      CL in Alberta can be tricky, this site, http://www.slsedmonton.com/docs/CommonLawProp.pdf can help you understand your rights.
      Generally if as the partner to the person the owns the home and your name is not on title, you have to clearly show that you contributed to the
      household either directly (making mortgage payments) or
      indirectly (caring for children, paying costs for maintenance, or doing general maintenance), then you have rights to the house under a constructive trust.

      Comment

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