My girlfriend and I have been together for 10 years, the first 5 living in my townhouse where I paid all expenses. I lost my job and needed to sell to get out of debt. We purchased a fixer-upper house 5 years ago in her name (I still owned my house at the time). I have spent every day for the last 5 years rebuilding the house which was in aweful condition. Along the way, we spent 3 years in an efficiency apartement. She has paid all expenses on the house and the apartement. But I have paid all of the expenses related to construction (currently have $65,000 in CC debt) and have done ALL of the labor for 5 years. In addition, my parents gave us $6,000 towards expenses.

The house was completely gutted (no walls) for years. My intention, once the house had at least a room or two where I could keep a suit, etc. free from construction debris, dust, etc. I would get a job and start paying down the debt (along with my girlfriend who is employed full-time). Well the house just reached that stage and, you guessed it, she doesn't want to be with me anymore. We have always referred to the house as "our house", talked all the time about how nice it will be to live here once it's finished, and would talk about 'spending our lives together'. Although she denies it now that she doesn't love me anymore, we both assumed marriage was in the future.

My question is what kind of legal options do I have to be reimbursed for my debt that went almost EXCLUSIVELY into construction of "her" house? What about labor? Unfortunately, there is no written agreement - I trusted her completely.

Because of the housing market decline, and the fact that she's breaking up before it's completed, the house will probably need to be sold at a loss. Is there a legal way to 'split' the loss between us or something similar? For instance, if the house sells for a $35,000 loss TO HER, but I owe $65,000 (so total loss is $100,000), is there a way to force her to pay me $15,000 so that my 'share' of the loss is reduce to $50,000 (or half of the $100,000)? Is there any way to factor in my labor (which was obviously very substantial)?

Thank you very much for your help and insight.

Well for starters... this is way beyond small claims court in amount of dollars.

Hope you at least kept records as to what was spent and for what.

I'd contact a lawyer because this reeks of a civil case due to the ammounts involved. And 10 years of cohabitation makes you married under common law in some states. And the rights you would have as a married couple. Many women have benifitted from that... there is no reason a man shouldn't as well.

And regardless of how this turns out... hope you learned your lesson about trusting people when that amount of money is involved.

Thank you Smoothy. I didn't see a "Civil" category on AMHD, so I posted under "Small Claims". If I could ask a follow-up to anyone out there: If she agree's that she'll pay me a certain amount of money every month for a certain number of years, how do I "legalize" that agreement so that she can't say she changed her mind in 3 months? Thank you.

Thank you Smoothy. I didn't see a "Civil" catagory on AMHD, so I posted under "Small Claims". If I could ask a follow-up to anyone out there: If she agree's that she'll pay me a certain amount of money every month for a certain number of years, how do I "legalize" that agreement so that she can't say she changed her mind in 3 months? Thank you.
That answer will have to come from a practicing lawyer. I can't do that. It would help if we knew what state this occurred in. Laws may vary.

I'm sorry, I thought I included that in my original post. I'm in Pennsylvania.