Estate agents are a relentlessly optimistic lot. Even as the property market languishes, they know those three Ds that bring houses to the market — divorce, debt and death — will ensure they don’t go hungry.
And divorce is in its bumper season, following those relationship-straining dates of Christmas and Valentine’s Day. “It’s the busiest time of year for us,” says Mark Keenan, the managing director of Divorce-Online.
When they divorce, couples usually sell the family home. Divorce or separation account for 9% of all property sales, according to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Anecdotal evidence suggests the figure is rising. “About 40% of the properties I see in Gloucestershire are on the market because of marriage breakdown,” says James Greenwood, managing director of Stacks Property Search and Acquisition. “In a market where people are reluctant to move unless they have to, it’s more and more likely for purchasers to find they are buying a property that has come onto the market as a result of an impending divorce.”
If the agent can steer all parties through the choppy waters of marital breakdown, though, it’s worth it: one divorce equals one big sale and two smaller purchases. “It’s a triple whammy,” says Ed Mead of Douglas & Gordon. “Dare I say it, from an agent’s point of view, divorce is not sad.”
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However, the often traumatised clients make the agents earn their commission. “The first estate agent who shows a divorced woman round is not going to sell her anything,” says Lizzie Williams, who moved out of her family home in October. “She’s going to loathe him because he’s the one who shows her the sort of house she is now going to have to live in.”
Says Mead: “We can end up in a counselling role as much as a selling role. You tend to get stuck in the middle, with one party asking what the other is paying for their new place. Solicitors won’t divulge this information and, frankly, it’s cheaper to speak to your estate agent.”
At the very top of the market, the marital home may not ever go on the market, but its value still has to be split. Ruaraidh Adams-Cairns, head of litigation support at Savills, says: “Ten years ago, in the high-profile cases involving shedloads of money, the wife would get enough money to buy a reasonable house and to provide a reasonable income to enable her to have a reasonable life. My angle would be to decide the value of a reasonable house for this ‘unsatisfactory ’ wife.
“Now there is more a presumption of a 50-50 split, with a joint sole expert to value the properties. In these so-called big-money cases, the property is never sold, so the whole question of valuation is sensitive. And everybody hates you because you are stuck in between, as it were.”
So, if you are splitting up, what’s the best way to handle the sale? “Whoever moves out of the house loses a tactical advantage, though sometimes things get so stressful, it may be helpful for one to leave,” says Helen Howard, a mediator and family lawyer who has written six editions of The Which? Guide to Divorce.
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The person left behind may be reluctant to sell — another headache. “They can be obstructive,” says Henry Holland-Hibbert of agents Lane Fox. “They don’t want anybody round to view or they don’t want viewings when they are there. Then, every time you put up an offer, it’s not enough, or the wrong person.”
Nancy Curtis and her husband, Nick, have been trying to buy a four-bed, four-storey Victorian town house in Hertfordshire since last summer. Their offer of £445,000 was accepted in July. They had a full survey done and instructed a solicitor. He was the first to sound the alarm. “When he heard the vendors were divorcing, he said, ‘Oh, no’. He said there are always complications and arguments when a couple are getting divorced.”
And he was right. “They are both still living in the house, though they seemed friendly at first,” Curtis says. “Then the woman, who doesn’t work, decided she didn’t want to sell until the financial settlement was agreed. Now she is refusing to release documents. One automatically disagrees with the other as a matter of principle. It is frustrating. There is nothing we can do but wait.”
On the plus side for a buyer, if a couple are divorcing, they will have to accept an offer eventually. “If you are sure you want to take advantage of people in that position, work out who the decision-maker is,” says Mead. “It will probably be the man, because nine times out of 10, he will be the breadwinner. Visit the house in the evening, when he will be in. Tell him you are sorry about the situation, but you are sure he’d like to sort it out quickly. Assure him of your ability to exchange contracts fast, but with completion to suit. You need to be flexible.”
Mary Brown, of Browns estate agents in Surrey, sees it as her job to act as a buffer and “prevent advantage being taken of a difficult situation”. But she admits divorcing couples will often accept a low offer to move on with their lives. Buyers can benefit from extra fixtures and fittings: “Divorcing couples don’t want any of the baggage; they want to make a new start and will leave curtains and fridges behind.”
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Or even a whole house: Amy Thompson’s boyfriend hadn’t paid much towards their three-bed terraced house near Portsmouth and he didn’t ask for anything when he left. “He was so keen to get out, he signed it over to me,” she says. The house, which cost £65,000 four years ago, is valued at £140,000, but it’s been a hard four years for Thompson, who works for the police with sex offenders.
“I had to go back to work three days a week to pay the mortgage,” Thompson says. “It’s easier now my daughter Kira has started school, but my wages only just about cover the mortgage and our outgoings.”
At least she didn’t have to move out. “It’s the worst kind of move you can do,” says Anthony Ward-Thomas of Ward-Thomas Removals. “You become the focus of their misery.”
Couples who don’t get on make life difficult, he says. In one case, “as one wife went round putting yellow stickers on all her stuff, the husband went round removing them”.
One client, Sarah Evans, was sobbing when Ward-Thomas came round to price the job. “I have struggled so hard to get up the ladder, and I was convinced this was the slippery slope,” she says.
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Evans spent 18 months in the marital home after her husband moved out. “I needed that time to settle and think,” she says. “Then I found a wonderful house, almost across the road. It cost two-thirds of my old one, and is smaller, but it’s much better. I let go of something I thought I wanted to hang on to, and it was the most extraordinary positive move for me. It’s like a joke happy ending.”
Patsy Bedrossian, 51, and her daughter Sophie, 15, swapped a £750,000 four-bed family house in Petersham, Surrey, for a £430,000 two-bed flat in nearby Richmond. She’s never been happier. “I’m near all my friends and I feel safe. Through my divorce I have found myself in an area I could not have afforded when we were a family and needed a big house. As a single parent, I don’t want the burden of a house. I just think: ‘Wow, I can live somewhere I really want and ditch all that responsibility at the same time’.”
Gingerbread (0800 018 4318, www.gingerbread.org.uk) supports lone-parent families; Divorce-Online (www.divorce-online.co.uk) is an online legal service company