Divorce and Separation: Changing your property ownership after a separation

Going through a separation or divorce can be an extremely difficult time with lots of upheaval and decisions to be made; especially when thinking about the division of assets such as property. If you jointly own property together, in the event of your death your share in the former family home will pass to your former partner or spouse. To prevent this from occurring after the breakdown of a relationship, especially before your divorce is completed, you should consider serving a notice of severance on your former partner or spouse to end the joint tenancy. This should then be followed by an application to the Land Registry to register it. You will still both be legal owners of the property as Tenants in Common, which means that upon death your share in the property will pass to whoever you choose, for example, your children. At the same time, you should consider updating or revising your will so that your wishes take effect in the event of your death in relation to your share of the property or any other assets you may have. Pavinder Khela is an experienced family solicitor at Hegarty Solicitors who offers an empathetic approach to dealing with family matters and aims to help clients explore all options with a view to providing practical solutions to problems. For further legal advice about separation or divorce, then please contact Pavinder Khela, our family solicitor and Andrea Beesley-Hewitt, our Wills and Trusts Associate solicitor, based at our Stamford Office. Please call on 01780 752066 or email [email protected]; [email protected] or alternatively contact our family and wills teams at our Peterborough office on 01733 346333.