What is a post-divorce user fee?

Questioner

I got divorced in September 2007 and have been living alone in the house since then, which had been for sale for 1 1/2 years. Since then I have been paying all the charges. Now my ex-wife wants to receive a user fee, is she entitled to it? The agreement does not include anything about this. Is the current market value or the market value of the past few years used? And what percentage is that?

Lawyer

Dear questioner, This question is not so easy to answer. The question is why nothing was included in the covenant about this at the time? In principle, reasonableness is the starting point for a possible user fee. There are various ways to make a calculation for this. This concerns the possible surplus value, the value of the use and the mutual distribution of the costs of the home. It is therefore about the total picture. Has your wife already made a concrete proposal? Does she have direct contact with you or via a lawyer? The starting point is that you try to work this out between yourselves. If that does not work, you can contact your lawyer who (possibly) assisted you at the time.

Lawyer

If you have paid interest and repayments, it is economically defensible that the interest actually concerns the costs of living. The question is whether it is a reasonable demand. In addition, I would think that retroactively requesting compensation that has not been agreed upon is not possible. It could be argued that you have actually been enriched by living in the shared home while she had to rent something. That advantage could then qualify for compensation as 'unjust enrichment'. You could also add her rental costs and the interest costs of the mortgage loan and divide them by 2. What is difficult for me is that I need a great deal of factual information to really dare to say what is reasonable in your specific situation. Good luck!