Paying Rent after Separation?

I am not familiar with situations where you own a house, but still pay "rent" on it. However, I would imagine that if you are a joint owner of the house and the "rent" is a legal liability that attaches to ownership of the house, then you would still have a legal liability to pay it. For example, if it was a mortgage you were paying. You and your husband would be jointly liable to pay the mortgage.

 

Whose name is on the rental agreement?
You could also rent it out to a tenant if you trust the tenant and need the extra money while your property is on the market.

 

Hi Janice,

I agree with the above comments. Owners do not need to pay rent to stay in their own properties. However, are you renting any land from the resort (parking spaces, other common areas etc)? Is the "rent" actually some sort of management fee labeled as rent? Or the rent could be for utilities, services, amenities charges.

There are also rare situations where the owner rents the property out to a tenant and then subsequently, during the period of tenancy, stays in the property themselves, in which case, they may need to pay rent to the tenant.

 

Janice, it appears that, while you own the building, you may not necessarily own the land on which the building is located, or surrounding land to which you have access and use of. In this case, rent may be reasonable. You should have signed some sort of rental agreement with the resort when you first bought the building. Have a look at the agreement and find out exactly what you and your husband own.