THEY MAY not be legally bound to stay together “for richer, for poorer”, but cohabiting couples who split can face even more difficulties than married couples.
Many cohabiting couples are young people who bought an apartment or house together in the last few years and so are particularly likely to have fallen into the negative equity trap.
Muriel Walls, family law solicitor at McCann Fitzgerald, works with many such couples who are breaking up and are “grappling around with difficulties”.
She says that sometimes they acknowledge that the relationship is over but continue to share the house “like ships in the night”, but this is obviously a short-term solution.
Another solution would be to try to substitute a partner for a friend in the arrangement.
Walls has seen a few situations where families have come to the rescue. For example, they may pay off part of the mortgage so that the property is no longer in negative equity, or a sibling might decide to buy the other person’s share.
In some circumstances, a boyfriend or girlfriend simply walks out, rents somewhere else and informs their former partner that they’re not going to pay their share of the mortgage any more.
Walls points out that people risk damaging their credit rating by doing this. “So it’s in their interest, even if there’s nothing in it for them financially, that they don’t just walk away and say ‘well, it’s your problem’.”
CAROLINE MADDEN
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