# I am separating my partner, we own a house together and there are financial complications



## Dorothy191 (Dec 13, 2020)

I am separating my partner and we own a house together. When we bought the house we were gifted £200,000 to both of us. Things haven’t worked out between us and now the person who go gave the gift is asking for it back despite signing a legal gift declaration. What should I do?


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

Get legal advice, especially if you can't repay the gift.


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## Dorothy191 (Dec 13, 2020)

Unless the gift comes out of the proceeds of the sale but my understanding was that once something was gifted it can’t be asked for back?


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## SpinyNorman (Jan 24, 2018)

Dorothy191 said:


> Unless the gift comes out of the proceeds of the sale but my understanding was that once something was gifted it can’t be asked for back?


We can give you free legal advice, and it will be fairly priced. For the amount of money you're dealing with, pay someone who knows and find out your obligations. Where you don't have obligations, you still have a choice, e.g. if it turned out you didn't have to give any of the gift back, you still could.


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

Dorothy191 said:


> Unless the gift comes out of the proceeds of the sale but my understanding was that once something was gifted it can’t be asked for back?


Legally, they can't require you repay them, but if you don't, can you accept the negativity that will come with that? How long ago was the gift made? If it was more than 4 or 5 years ago, then I'd say things like this (separation) happen. If it was a shorter time, then the expectation on which the gift was made may no longer apply. It still does not change the legality, but may change the ethical considerations. Is the gifter closer to one of you in some way?


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## Lance Mannion (Nov 24, 2020)

Dorothy191 said:


> Unless the gift comes out of the proceeds of the sale but my understanding was that once something was gifted it can’t be asked for back?


The gift was given with the expectation that you were a couple, now you're not. The gift was almost certainly from one side of the family, so it was a error made in ignorance to gift to the couple when it should have been gifted to the spouse who was related and that spouse should never have co-mingled the funds.

Think about it, someone worked and scrimped to save that money and now the non-related spouse is going to walk away with half that money and go start a new family and never see or speak to the giftor again.

It is immoral, theft, for the non-related person to keep that money, you know that gift was meant for the couple, not for two individuals. Theft. Thief.


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

Guessing here … your partner’s family is requesting the money back and you don’t think that’s right? I would think it depends on what (if anything) was said at the time of the “gift” about conditions.


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

How much weight does a legal gift declaration (not familiar with that) have in a UK court?


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## Dorothy191 (Dec 13, 2020)

The declaration says they cannot ask me to repay it, I’m just trying to work out the right thing to do here as it’s not my fault that the relationship didn’t work


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## MJJEAN (Jun 26, 2015)

My husband was gifted our down payment by his family. A few years later, he was given enough to pay off the mortgage. The money was meant to be his inheritance, but his parents wanted him and his siblings to have some of their inheritance money while they were younger and needed it more.

In order for the mortgage to go through the bank needed a letter stating the money was gifted to DH. Legally, the money was a gift. It was not conditional and was not a loan. When we hit a rough patch I investigated what would happen to the house, the gift money, etc. should we split. Here, in the US, the money was gifted to DH, he used the money to purchase a marital asset, the money then became a marital asset, an would be subject to asset division like any other marital asset.

I highly suspect your situation is the same unless the gift letter had conditions attached. As always, check with a lawyer. Legally, you're probably in the clear. Morally, I think you're still in the clear. The money was gifted to you both. It's a shared asset. If the family wanted the money to stay in the family in the event of a divorce they should have added stipulations. They did not. They were either generous and have since changed their minds, which is too bad for them, or they were negligent. Either way, you're not in any way obligated to repay the gift.


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## DownByTheRiver (Jul 2, 2020)

Dorothy191 said:


> I am separating my partner and we own a house together. When we bought the house we were gifted £200,000 to both of us. Things haven’t worked out between us and now the person who go gave the gift is asking for it back despite signing a legal gift declaration. What should I do?


Just get an attorney. You don't have to return gifts if they have no proof it wasn't a loan. You will need an attorney of your own, and don't share your spouse's or any other relative's!! Family law attorney.


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

If the declaration said they can’t ask you to repay then it sounds like wishful thinking on their part.


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## LisaDiane (Jul 22, 2019)

Dorothy191 said:


> The declaration says they cannot ask me to repay it, I’m just trying to work out the right thing to do here as it’s not my fault that the relationship didn’t work


If what you say is true, then you shouldn't give it back. And that doesn't make you a "thief", so don't listen to posters who call you that.


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## jin (Sep 9, 2014)

Dorothy191 said:


> The declaration says they cannot ask me to repay it, I’m just trying to work out the right thing to do here as it’s not my fault that the relationship didn’t work


So this is a moral question rather than a legal questioni take it. That's a tricky one and there are arguments for both sides of either keeping or returning it. 

Was the declaration to both of you or just one person?


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## Lance Mannion (Nov 24, 2020)

LisaDiane said:


> If what you say is true, then you shouldn't give it back. And that doesn't make you a "thief", so don't listen to posters who call you that.


A scammer calls you and sweet talks you, you send him $20,000 because of promises he made to you. Then you discover the promises were not real. Hey, the scammer didn't do anything wrong, right? You knew what you were doing, right?

That family made the gift to the couple, the couple is no more, they never intended to give a gift to a departing non-related spouse. 

To take the money is to exploit the ignorance of the giftgiver. If the gift giver had put stipulations on the gift to prevent it from being mingled into the marital assets, then there would be no problem.

The OP knows that she is not meeting the expectations which informed the gift. She's trying to exploit a legal technicality in order to take money which was not intended as a gift for a divorcing woman.


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## LisaDiane (Jul 22, 2019)

Lance Mannion said:


> A scammer calls you and sweet talks you, you send him $20,000 because of promises he made to you. Then you discover the promises were not real. Hey, the scammer didn't do anything wrong, right? You knew what you were doing, right?
> 
> That family made the gift to the couple, the couple is no more, they never intended to give a gift to a departing non-related spouse.
> 
> ...


I'm sorry, but your black and white thinking doesn't work for me. I see the gray areas in almost everything.

And comparing this woman's situation with a scammer doesn't match AT ALL what is happening with THIS situation...

I believe that you using several different ways to imply she was stealing remorselessly was too harsh. And I wanted HER to know that I understood her view and disagreed with your view.


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## Lance Mannion (Nov 24, 2020)

LisaDiane said:


> I'm sorry, but your black and white thinking doesn't work for me. I see the gray areas in almost everything.
> 
> And comparing this woman's situation with a scammer doesn't match AT ALL what is happening with THIS situation...
> 
> I believe that you using several different ways to imply she was stealing remorselessly was too harsh. And I wanted HER to know that I understood her view and disagreed with your view.


I would gift one of my kids the money to buy a house when they married, but I would never gift my son-in-law or daughter-in-law after they divorced one of my kids. The gift would be to THE COUPLE so that they could build a life together and my grandchildren would be living in a better house.

The problem in the OP's situation is the legal naivete of the giftors. If they're asking for the gift back that's as clear a sign as possible that they believe the terms of their gift have been violated, now this divorcing couple is in violation of the terms.

She's trying to exploit a legal error made by the gift givers in order to abscond with money that was never intended for her in this divorce situation.


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## MJJEAN (Jun 26, 2015)

Lance Mannion said:


> A scammer calls you and sweet talks you, you send him $20,000 because of promises he made to you. Then you discover the promises were not real. Hey, the scammer didn't do anything wrong, right? You knew what you were doing, right?


 Except the promises were real. The marriage was entered into in good faith. The gift was given to the married couple to share. What is shared in a marriage is equally divided when the marriage fails.


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## Lance Mannion (Nov 24, 2020)

MJJEAN said:


> Except the promises were real. The marriage was entered into in good faith. The gift was given to the married couple to share. What is shared in a marriage is equally divided when the marriage fails.


Clearly the givers of the gift don't see it that way.


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## MJJEAN (Jun 26, 2015)

Lance Mannion said:


> Clearly the givers of the gift don't see it that way.


Around 50% of marriages end in divorce. The parents were well aware a divorce was a realistic possibility and they gambled 200k on the marriage surviving. They made a bad bet and are salty about it, nothing more.


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## LisaDiane (Jul 22, 2019)

Lance Mannion said:


> I would gift one of my kids the money to buy a house when they married, but I would never gift my son-in-law or daughter-in-law after they divorced one of my kids. The gift would be to THE COUPLE so that they could build a life together and my grandchildren would be living in a better house.
> 
> The problem in the OP's situation is the legal naivete of the giftors. If they're asking for the gift back that's as clear a sign as possible that they believe the terms of their gift have been violated, now this divorcing couple is in violation of the terms.
> 
> She's trying to exploit a legal error made by the gift givers in order to abscond with money that was never intended for her in this divorce situation.


You are assuming the high ground in a situation you know very few details about.

But even IF you are totally right about the situation, calling her a "THIEF" was too harsh...ESPECIALLY if it's NOT HER idea to divorce!!! 

I believe she SHOULD take advantage of all legal protections available to her for ANY "marital" assets given to her, and get as much as she can out of the divorce.


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## Lance Mannion (Nov 24, 2020)

MJJEAN said:


> Around 50% of marriages end in divorce. The parents were well aware a divorce was a realistic possibility and they gambled 200k on the marriage surviving. They made a bad bet and are salty about it, nothing more.


And the news is filled with stories of Nigerian phone scammers, so victims get what they deserve.


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## LisaDiane (Jul 22, 2019)

Lance Mannion said:


> And the news is filled with stories of Nigerian phone scammers, so victims get what they deserve.


You are reaching, Lance...

BIG DIFFERENCE, and you know it.


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## Lance Mannion (Nov 24, 2020)

LisaDiane said:


> You are reaching, Lance...
> 
> BIG DIFFERENCE, and you know it.


That the family is asking for the money back as a REACTION to divorce clearly signals that they never INTENDED for this woman to benefit post-divorce from their gift. Their error here was in not structuring that gift with the proper legal conditions to prevent this outcome.

IOW, they were naive, just like victims of Nigerian phone scammers. No one, that I read, is telling the victims of Nigerian phone scammers "You deserve losing your money because you were stupid" but what I'm reading here is a lot of "You go girl, exploit the legal naivete of those people and have fun with their money."


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

If the gift was given for the 2 of you to buy a home which you are now selling because you are no longer together, it would seem to me that the morally right thing to do would be to pay it back out of the proceeds of the house sale. If its his family, which I am assuming it was, then I can fully understand why they feel they want it back. Its a lot of money.


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

Lance Mannion said:


> Clearly the givers of the gift don't see it that way.


Then they are delusional, or hypocrites.


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## LisaDiane (Jul 22, 2019)

Lance Mannion said:


> That the family is asking for the money back as a REACTION to divorce clearly signals that they never INTENDED for this woman to benefit post-divorce from their gift. Their error here was in not structuring that gift with the proper legal conditions to prevent this outcome.
> 
> IOW, they were naive, just like victims of Nigerian phone scammers. No one, that I read, is telling the victims of Nigerian phone scammers "You deserve losing your money because you were stupid" but what I'm reading here is a lot of "You go girl, exploit the legal naivete of those people and have fun with their money."


Nope.


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

Is this a marriage or a partnership (or does that even matter legally in the UK)?


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## MJJEAN (Jun 26, 2015)

Lance Mannion said:


> And the news is filled with stories of Nigerian phone scammers, so victims get what they deserve.


At a certain point, yes. Yes, some victims do get exactly what they deserve. The Nigerian Prince scam is a great example. If you _know_ there is a Nigerian Prince scam _and_ you send money anyway thinking maybe this one is different, you've gotten what you deserve.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

I see it as a personal responsibility thing.

If they intended the money to be returned they would have made stipulations. They did not. Therefore, they intended the money as a gift. The situation changed and they're trying to ret-con. That's not how life works.


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