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Divorce and house

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numnum | 13:40 Sat 29th Jan 2011 | Law
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This is just out of curiosity.

My dads wife has filed for divorce and all finances, house sales and everything have been blocked till an agreement is come to

We were just speaking about it on the phone and me and my boyfriend had our suspicions about her from the start and the thought did cross my mind to get my dad to sign his house over to us or grandchildren. but as predicted she's wanting a divorce after a year of marraige and has high demands

She has money herself but we were saying could my dad have signed his house over to us before she put the block on everything or would it have looked suspicious.
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We'd need more information, numnum, but much may depend whether the house is just in your dad's name, whether he owns it (apart from any mortgage) or whether he put her name on the deeds too. After only a year of marriage, I'm not sure that she will be seen legally to have contributed much towards the house, I don't know how much she's entitled to (or could claim she is) without a lot more info.
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i think he put her name on it once married. they also own another house abroad that they use as a business and they each own half of that. she wants that house and the house he's lived in for the last 20 years!!! which he owns. she also thinks she's entitled to his pension

i think some lawyers are taking things into consideration from when they got engaged where others from marraige.
it will most likely come down to who has the best staying power My firend just got divorced from a psycho and TBH gave him much more than he would ahve probably been entitled to just to get him out of her life
I'm not wholly sure about whether or not he could have "signed the house over to you" (that would be dependent on various things such as age, how you used it, whether you were in occupation etc - I think the courts would take a common sense look at this - however I'm not wholly sure as I haven't studied land law for a few years and my family law course didn't cover it).
However it is definitely relevant that they divorced after only a year - this is the legal minimum and the courts will probably just take a 'clean break' approach to it whereby you try to divide things so the parties go out with essentially what they came in with. Length of marriage is a relevant consideration and obviously the longer you are married, the more likely it is to be inferred that you intend to share everything and the more likely a 50/50 split is.
However in a case of a short marriage (such as your dad's) it is most likely that she will not be able to claim on the home etc unless she has made substantial contributions to is (i.e. paid for half of it, or drastically increased the value etc)...
I'm sure your dad's solicitors will know this however, and an agreement will come pretty swiftly once everything's been explained.
It's a fact of life that divorce unfortunately makes everyone poorer.

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Divorce and house

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