Sandra's story

Adam and Sandra had been living together for two years in a rented flat when they were suddenly given notice on the property they were renting. She recalls: "We had to decide very quickly whether to rent again or buy."

Amidst a whirlwind of quick decisions, they found a stunning two bedroom flat with a sea view that captured her heart and his imagination. Sandra paid the £10,000 deposit. Adam, a self-employed architect, drew up plans to re-design the downstairs, project-managed the extension and transformed the pokey kitchen. The home improvements rocketed the value of the flat to £250,000, a massive profit even after costing in the building work.

They lived happily together for 5 years, sharing the monthly mortgage payments and gradually making their house and garden perfect. "Then, out of the blue, he dumped me." She winces. "He said he'd met another woman. I immediately moved out. For a year I stayed with friends, sleeping on the floor if necessary while he carried on living in our flat. I suddenly had no home, but what was even harder was not having anything! We hadn't discussed how the furniture, crockery, cutlery, gardening equipment, cost of landscaping, curtains or even the rugs would be divided. Everything stayed in the flat with Adam and I was so emotional, the last thing I wanted to do was go round and face him, start trying to negotiate or take legal action."

The wrangling over possessions and the flat took months, until she ran out of energy. They agreed he would put the house on the market but she says: "Strangely, it didn't sell even though at the time everything else was selling fast…"

Eventually she found a buyer but on the day of the sale Adam declared he wouldn't go through with it, he wanted to keep the flat.

Finally Sandra caved in - she had no power to sell the house against his wishes without going to court over it. She says: "As long as I had to keep going back I couldn't move on." She demanded that he paid her half the asking price (less the money he had been paying on the mortgage since they split up), but she never received it. Now she has settled for a sum that's not even half that amount.