NSW Separation - Mortgage, Property Settlement and Other Issues?

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Paul68

Member
26 April 2016
1
1
1
I am separating with my partner of 12 years. We have a house that is in her name only, but I have been paying half of the mortgage for the past year. We moved to the property together 18 months ago, but I have not been able to contribute for the past 6 months as my work dropped down to only a few days work a month.

I was not entitled to benefits as she earns a good wage and we were still living together. Centrelink did not believe that we had split up. We manage our own money, so we were not sharing money in a joint account, so I basically have had no money. I did not get included on the mortgage because, at the time, I didn't feel that my work was stable enough & we also planned that in the future that we could rent out or sell the current property and that I would buy a new property and be able to claim the government incentive for first time buyers.

I don't know if I'm entitled to half of the equity in the property as property settlement or not, as it's in her name only. That's the first thing that I wanted to ask about.

There is now a complication to the break-up, in that her niece is now staying in the house with us for 3 months, she's visiting from Europe. Everything was fine with her niece, but my partner (or ex-partner) and I were still arguing, as I did not want this separation and have been trying to sort things out. Her niece has now decided to get involved and has been quite abusive towards me and has now switched her tactics and is trying to take over the house, taking the dog into her room every night, putting her stuff completely over the bathroom that I use, so that I have to move everything if I want a wash.

She has turned all of the ringtones & notifications on her phone right up loud & has started loudly shouting 'ping' every few seconds that she gets a notification. She is talking loudly and generally trying to make me feel as uncomfortable as she can. I know that this might sound a bit childish & you could say that she is entitled to put things on the sink but I also have to use the sink, as does my step-son.

I cleared a whole shelf under the sink for her before she arrived for her things & showed her where she could keep her washing stuff. She knows exactly what she is doing & is almost trying to take over in the house and make me feel as unwanted as she can. She's decided to play games with me and I think that she is behaving in an unreasonable manner, especially as a guest in my home.

As she is my ex-partner's family, is there anything that I can do to have her removed from the house? I would rather it didn't come to that, but I'm not going to stand back while someone muscles into my home and tries to take over & make me leave. When she was shouting at me and being abusive, I did consider getting the police involved, because if she was arrested and charged, her visa would be cancelled, problem solved. I didn't want to do that but I was not happy about someone, who I don't know, coming into my house & shouting at me and being abusive towards me. I have only met her once before about 10 years ago when she was about 14, so I can't say that I know her. So is there anything that can be done about her?

I do want to leave the house and move on, as much as it will hurt me as I think that things have got so bad that there is not going to be any reconciliation. The reason that I can't leave is that I have nowhere to go & with my job situation, I don't have an income to support myself. I have only worked one day this month. I do earn good money when I do work, but it is not enough to survive on when I only get a few days work a month.

My work has slowly become worse over an 18-month period until it has reached the situation that I'm in now, where I'm about to lose everything. I have been applying for jobs, but just keep hitting brick walls. Part of my problem is that I've had some good careers & have got qualifications, but I can't seem to get work in any of my fields & have just been applying for any job, such as supermarket jobs, but getting nowhere.

I don't really have any good friends where I live to be able to call on either and my family are all in the UK & are very strongly advising me not to go back there, I guess because they think that it would be the wrong thing to do & I would still be in a similar situation if I went back, in that I might not get a job.

I am starting to think that it may be my only option as I could sell my car, although it's old & I could sell a few other things, that I really don't want to sell & I could scrape enough money together to get back to the UK, but I'd have nothing once I got back & don't think I'd even be able to afford to ship all of my possessions back. If I don't want to lose my possessions then I have to stay here.

I hope that someone could help me out.

Many thanks.
 
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teflongirl

Well-Known Member
29 January 2016
39
1
124
Make contact with a local legal centre or try legal aid too. Look either of them up on the net for your state city or regional area. Let us know how you go on. I'm so sorry that it has gone this way for you.