Your home & who keeps it?
How your home may be owned
You own your home (either all of it or part of it) if your name is on a legal document called the title deeds.
Your home might be owned:
- by one of you, which means it’s in one of your names
- jointly, by both of you (and there are different forms of joint ownership) Property can be held as either joint tenants or tenants in common.
- by someone else (such as a family member)
The first step you need to know, is if the property is registered jointly or just in your partner’s name, and its title number.
Check the property registration with the HM Land Registry for England and Wales
Who gets to keep the house?
Quite often in divorce cases, the question of what should happen with the family home can be the most contentious issue.
Often it is the most valuable asset within the marriage, although the pensions can sometimes exceed the value of the family home and it really depends on the case.
Certainly keeping the family home can be a very emotive issue for the parties to a divorce, especially if there are minor children at home.
If both parties wishes to keep the house and do not wish to sell the house on the open market, then the court can agree to a sealed bid. A sealed bid is a type of auction that is used when there is significant interest in a property from competing buyers.
Sealed bids can work with anything such as a house, a business, an expensive car – Have each spouse submit a sealed bid; when the bids are opened, the highest bidder gets the item.
What legal rights do I have to my home during a divorce?
If you are legal joint owner of the property (which means that the house is owned by you and your spouse), you have right of entry and right of occupation until such time as a financial Order is approved by the Court. (see some more information here